A time of celebration in Guyana preparing for Independence Day this week turned to mourning on Monday after at least 20 people, many of them children, died when a fire engulfed a girls’ dormitory at a school in the central part of Guyana. the South American country.
The country’s president described the fatal fire as “horrific” and a “major disaster”.
The ages of the victims are not known, but the students at the school are between 12 and 16 years old.
Several others were injured in the fire that broke out late Sunday in Mahdia, a gold mining town about 200 kilometers southwest of the capital Georgetown. Seven students in critical condition were evacuated to the capital.
“The focus now is on the children to make sure we do everything we can, to help them as much as we can,” President Mohamed Irfaan Ali told reporters early Monday morning at Ogle Airport, also known as Eugene F. Correia International Airport where he organized a “large-scale emergency plan”.
Bad weather had delayed the government’s immediate response to the crisis, the government said in an earlier statement.
Survivors were flown to the capital for treatment at two hospitals, and five planes filled with emergency medical supplies and health workers were sent to Mahdia to support rescue and evacuation efforts.
The government said the fire was believed to have started around 11:50 p.m. on Sunday, but the full extent of the damage and the cause of the fire had not yet been confirmed. Footage posted by a local news outlet showed a glowing plume of smoke rising from the burning Mahdia Secondary School building.
Attempts were made to reach the families of the victims, who, according to the government, are from villages across the country.
In Mahdia, which has a largely indigenous or Amerindian population, the majority of students come from remote, inaccessible areas. The government provides air travel so they can go to the public boarding school.
“We have to get this right,” said Mr. Ali, who said psychologists and advisers were needed for the relief effort, which was led in Mahdia by the country’s interior minister, Robeson Benn. Prime Minister Mark Phillips led a team of officials to the site.
According to the police, a student who managed to escape was awakened by screaming on Sunday night. She noticed a fire in the bathroom that quickly spread to other parts of the building.
Natasha Singh-Lewis, a representative of the opposition coalition A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change, called for a thorough investigation into “what really went wrong” at the school, in a statement posted to Facebook on Monday.
“We must understand how this horrific and deadly incident happened and take all necessary measures to prevent such a tragedy from happening again,” she said.
