At least 25 burnt to death in fire at Malaysian capital school

“I could hear screaming, I thought there were people fighting”.

The fire officials said that the blaze broke out in the bedrooms on the top floor of the three-storey school building just before dawn.

Meanwhile, a 38-year-old cleaner who only wanted to be known as Maryani, called for prayers for her son Indera Kurniawan, 13, who is also among the survivors of the fire.

“They died from suffocation and subsequently the bodies were totally burnt”, Singh said.

Many students have also cried for help to save them.

An electrical short circuit is believed to have caused the blaze at the Islamic school, which didn’t have a fire permit and was not licensed by local or religious authorities. The fire department said earlier that at least 25 were killed in the fire.

Loga Bala Mohan, the government’s federal territories deputy minister, said: “We sympathise with the families”.

The department’s director-general Datuk Wan Mohd Nor Ibrahim said initial submissions of architectural drawings showed that the building had two stairwells and was an open concept dormitory which would allow those inside access to both stairwells for emergency exit.

“The wall shouldn’t have been there”, he said. The officials must take safety measures to avoid fire accidents.

Tahfiz are religious schools in Malaysia, where children study the Koran.

School principal Mohamad Zahid Mahmod was quoted by the Berita Harian newspaper as saying the students were being housed in a temporary building because of renovation work at the main school building. “Some specialists are taking care of them”, he said.

23 students and two school staff died in the fire.

Such schools are not regulated by the education ministry of the country. It says there are more than 500 such schools registered in Malaysia and that many others may be unregistered.

Nearby media report there have been more than 200 flames at such schools since 2015.

A fire department official, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to give a statement, said the bodies were piled on top of each other, indicating a possible stampede as people tried to flee the fire.