About 500 pupils were evacuated from a school here on Wednesday when a fire broke out in a classroom. It was the second fire at the site since the beginning of the year. The 50th Girls' Secondary School in the north of the city witnessed panic and faintings when staff and pupils rushed out of classrooms and offices to the yard outside as smoke engulfed the site. The fire, which reportedly started in an electronic transformer in the home economics classroom, led to accusations from parents that school officials had failed to respond sufficiently to the previous fire at the school. The school said the latest fire was “an accident” and “not due to an electricity overload inside the school”.
