A fire sparked by burning mosquito coils ripped through a kindergarten in the southeastern Chinese city of Nanchang on Tuesday killing 13 children aged three and four, officials said.
The fire broke out shortly after midnight in a first floor dormitory at the kindergarten in the capital of Jiangxi province, suffocating seven boys and six girls, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Four children managed to escape the blaze: one ran to safety by himself while three others were pulled clear by rescuers, Xinhua said.
It is the second school tragedy in Jiangxi in several months. On March 6 more than 40 young children died in an explosion at a school in Fanglin village where parents alleged the pupils were forced to make fireworks.
The blast scandalized public opinion in China and led to an unprecedented apology from Premier Zhu Rongji.
Xinhua said the fire was caused by burning mosquito coils which ignited bedding in the dormitory at the kindergarten, which is attached to the Jiangxi Radio and Television Station.
The agency said a carer, identified as Yang Huichen, lit three mosquito coils and placed them between the cots in the dormitory. Several hours later one child's cotton bedding fell on top of one of the coils.
Xinhua said no teachers or workers were in the dormitory when the fire broke out and that investigators concluded the blaze was not started deliberately.
The agency said residents in nearby apartment blocks raised the alarm after seeing smoke billowing from the building.
The kindergarten is inside a large walled compound which houses the provincial television station as well as living quarters, restaurants and stores.
A television station employee said the fire destroyed just one room on the first floor of the three-storey kindergarten, which was opened in September 1999 by an industrial company owned by the television station.
He said there were 304 youngsters enrolled at the school which also had around 30 staff.
Another station employee said grief-stricken parents gathered outside the kindergarten in the early hours of the morning as the firefighters doused the flames.
"They were very upset, there was a lot of crying and screaming," the man told AFP. He said the parents were later taken to a nearby hotel.
He said the kindergarten was an elite establishment for well-off families which charged monthly fees of up to 1,700 yuan (210 dollars), and that the dead children were not from families employed by the station.
The employee estimated there were more than 100 children inside the building when the fire broke out.
Witnesses said around 30 armed police were guarding the main entrance to the compound, while around 200 police encircled the three-storey kindergarten building which had several blacked out windows on the third floor.
Parents of the dead children were gathered at a hotel across the road from the compound, and one tearful woman was seen sitting in the lobby -- NANCHANG, China (AFP)
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