WORLD : 27 Malaysian Schoolgirls Die in Fire
<i> From Times wire services</i>
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia —
Twenty-seven girls were burned to death as they slept early today when a fire swept the dormitory of a private religious school in Malaysia’s northwest town of Alor Setar. Sixty others escaped.
Witnesses who examined the devastation said the students were housed in cramped conditions at the two-story Madrasah Private School. The 27 victims and 60 others who escaped slept in bunk beds in a 20-by-50-foot dormitory with one stairway to the ground floor. The dead students ranged in age from 13 to 16.
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