Police stated the common age of the victims was round 9 years previous. (Representational)

Nairobi:

No less than 17 kids died after a fireplace ripped by their main college dormitory in a single day in central Kenya, police stated Friday.

The blaze in Nyeri county’s Hillside Endarasha Academy broke out at round midnight, police stated, engulfing rooms the place the youngsters had been sleeping.

The first college caters to some 800 pupils, aged between roughly 5 and 12.

“There are 17 fatalities from this incident and there are additionally others who had been taken to hospital with severe accidents,” nationwide police spokesperson Resila Onyango instructed AFP.

“The our bodies recovered on the scene had been burnt past recognition,” she stated.

Police stated the common age of the victims was round 9 years previous.

A number of others had been injured, Onyango stated, 16 of them significantly, and had been rushed to a close-by hospital.

“Extra our bodies are more likely to be recovered as soon as (the) scene is absolutely processed,” she stated.

The reason for the fireplace stays unknown, she stated, however an investigation had been launched.

President William Ruto expressed his condolences for these killed.

“Our ideas are with the households of the youngsters who’ve misplaced their lives within the fireplace tragedy,” he stated in a put up on X.

“That is devastating information.”

He stated he had instructed officers to “totally examine this horrific incident”, and promised that these accountable can be “held to account”. 

The varsity is positioned round 170 kilometres (100 miles) north of the capital Nairobi, in Nyeri county. 

The Kenyan Crimson Cross stated it was on the bottom helping a multi-agency response staff.

In a put up on X, it stated it was “offering psychosocial help companies to the pupils, academics and affected households”.

Lethal blazes

There have been quite a few college fires in Kenya and throughout East Africa.

In 2016, 9 college students had been killed by a fireplace at a ladies’ highschool within the Kibera neighbourhood of Nairobi.

In 2001, 67 pupils had been killed by an arson assault on their dormitory on the Kyanguli Blended Secondary Faculty David Mutiso in Kenya’s southern Machakos district.

Two pupils had been charged with the homicide, and the headmaster and deputy of the varsity had been convicted of negligence. 

In 1994, 40 college kids had been burned alive and 47 injured in a fireplace that ravaged the Shauritanga Secondary Faculty for Ladies within the northern area of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)