Fire angers Belgians

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33443, 26 January 1974, Page 9

Fire angers Belgians

-neuter—Copyright J

HEUSDEN, ,i January 25. i’ Anger mounted in Bel- ; gium today after a latenight fire left 23 school-; boys dead in their up- 1 stairs dormitory in the! eastern Belgium mining! town of Heusden. Questions still remained unanswered on the cause of the fire and whether there were enough safety measures. Pupils and a teacher at the Roman Catholic Sacred Heart College for boys said that there had never been any fire drill and witnesses said there was panic when the blaze broke out late on Wednesday night. One teacher told reporters; that there had been talk about organising fire drills a year ago, but it was never carried out. Two fire extinguishers hung at the entrance to the

ill-fated dormitory but nei-it ther was used. t Firemen said that there wash a lack of safety precautions |1 at the school amid claims! that the gate to its main; courtyard was too narrow) for the largest fire engines. | Belgian laws do not speci-i fy any standards for fire! in schools and! already there are calls for! improved legislation. The cause of the fire is still a mystery, but the most popular supposition is that it broke out because of an illicit cigarette smoked by one of the boys. Hie second floor dormitory contained 63 boys, aged between 12 and 15. All slept in individual cubicles, separated by wooden partitions which burned to cinders in the blaze. Police on the scene said that the 'dormitory appeared to have (been too small for the num|ber of children sleeping in it. ! Most of the victims were I believed to have been suffocated in the thick smoke I which preceded the flames

and 10 of the 23 dead were I still in the charred remains iof their beds when their (bodies were found.