Four Children Among 27 Dead In India Amusement Park Fire

Ahmedabad, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th May, 2024) Four young children were among 27 people killed when a fire in India ripped through a crowded amusement park, a top local official said Sunday, as rescuers scoured the site the morning after the blaze.

Survivors reported having to kick down doors and leap out of windows to escape the inferno that swept through a centre packed full of young people enjoying games including bowling, Indian media reported on Sunday.

Lines of bodies draped in white cloths were laid out before being taken away from the centre in Rajkot, a city in the western state of Gujarat.

The four children reported dead were all aged under 12, said police, who warned that many of the corpses were so badly burned it was difficult to identify them.

Outside the still-smouldering wreckage, the mother and sister of 20-year-old Asha Kathad -- who had worked in the centre -- waited for news.

They held up a photograph of Asha on a mobile phone.

"We don't have any information about her," Asha's mother told local reporters, too distraught to give her full name as she wept.