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Kyodo

A fire that broke out at a primary school in Tokyo on Friday, injuring eight pupils and two teachers before being extinguished, authorities said.
The fire was reported around 11am, according to the local fire department. It started in a room next to the music room on the top floor of Takinogawa Dai-san Elementary School in the Kita area of the Japanese capital.
It was extinguished at around 1.45pm, with 75 fire engines and dozens of firefighters at the scene.
Most of the injured suffered from inhaling smoke, the department said. One teacher broke her hip and two children had fractured arms. Firefighters rescued one teacher and three schoolchildren out of the building with non-life-threatening injuries.

About 340 students attend the ward-run school, according to its website. Classes were being held when the fire broke out and fifth-grade pupils were receiving a lesson in the music room.
They and other students evacuated to the schoolyard while wearing protective hoods kept for disasters, the authorities said.
Part of a wall on the top floor was blackened and charred.
An 11-year-old boy who was taking a class in English when the fire started said: “We called out ‘Calm down’ with teachers but it was very scary.”
An employee of a company close to the school, 58, said, “I was surprised by a fire alarm and watched outside to find many pupils in the schoolyard. Red flames were emerging from the school and the sky became completely black due to the smoke.”

All of the about 300 people inside the building when the fire broke out had evacuated to a nearby park on their own and no one was left behind, officials said.
A journalist said helicopters flew overhead as parents rushed to pick up frightened children.
One witness told how children escaped out of windows to a concrete ledge below, before fire crews brought them to safety using ladders.
A child in the sixth grade described how she and her classmates, who were two rooms away from the music room, suddenly smelled smoke. “We thought maybe someone was cooking … Then the siren went off,” she said.
She told how they ran down the stairs, covering their mouths with handkerchiefs, and evacuated to the schoolyard.
“Then we saw the music room already burning with flames. There’s a multipurpose room next to it, and we heard a bang from around the area between the multipurpose room and the music room,” she said.
“It was scary, and a lot of kids were crying.”
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse, Associated Press


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Most of the injured suffered from smoke inhalation. One teacher broke her hip and two children had arm fractures


Most of the injured suffered from smoke inhalation. One teacher broke her hip and two children had arm fractures.


Tokyo

‘It was scary’: 300 evacuated, 10 injured after fire breaks out at Japanese primary school

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Most of the injured suffered from smoke inhalation. One teacher broke her hip and two children had arm fractures

Most of the injured suffered from smoke inhalation. One teacher broke her hip and two children had arm fractures