A stampede took place at a school in central China and it led to the death of two students. Twenty more students suffered injuries from the incident.
Reports said the students, who are from Number Three Experimental Primary School located in Puyang, went to the bathroom sometime in the morning during a ten-minute break. The students rushed to the bathroom after a reading class and before a monthly exam. Some of the students started to push the others that subsequently led to the stampede.
The State media noted some students suffered from serious injuries while two remained in critical condition. Authorities took them to area hospitals.
An official confirmed two died from the incident but declined to provide further details. One parent said the students started pushing after they panicked due to a collapsed bathroom wall. Authorities did not confirm the parent's post.
The ages of the students killed from the stampede remained unknown as well as their gender. Due to the deaths, school officials removed the headmaster of the school, The New York Post reported.
If the reports about a bathroom wall collapsed were indeed true, it was not the first time that poor building construction became one of the reasons for fatal accidents in the country. In 2008, after an earthquake, thousands of schools believed to be poorly built collapsed while other buildings around them remained intact.
A video also made rounds online showing some of the parents and the children's relatives waiting outside the school after the latest stampede. Some of the relatives collapsed while waiting outside the school. The cause of the incident remained under investigation, Time revealed.
The incident was not the first time a deadly stampede took place in China. In 2015, 36 people died during New Year celebrations. In 2014, six children died and 25 others suffered from injuries after a stampede took place on a school staircase.
