50 dead in Haitian grade-school collapse

About 50 schoolchildren and teachers were killed when a shantytown grade school packed with hundreds of students collapsed during classes, a government official has said. The three-story La Promesse (The Promise) school in Petion-ville, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, caved in  in a heap of cement slabs and twisted steel rods at about 10:00 am (2030 GMT) yesterday November 7, trapping scores inside.
      
By late in the day at around 50 bodies, most of them children, had been found, officials said. “We have counted about 50 dead for the moment, and around 85 injured,” said Nadia Lochard of the civil protection bureau.
      
“But there are still numerous children stuck in the rubble. We have signs that they are still alive and we are organizing help to try to save them,” she said. Lochard said that French fire crews from Guadaloupe were to arrive overnight to help in the rescue.
      
Earlier a count put the toll at 40, including 30 bodies sent to the Haiti State University Hospital in
Port-au-Prince, six sent to a Petion-ville hospital, and four others seen on stretchers.
      
As many as 700 students aged from three to 20 attend the church-run school in a suburb of the capital, but an accurate count of how many had been inside when it crumbled was not available.
      
A new story had been under construction atop the three-story school when it fell in, also destroying or damaging five homes next to it.

(Agencies)

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