ONLY a third of students went back to Pitakkiatwittaya School in the far North – where a fire killed 17 girls in its dormitory on May 22 – when it reopened yesterday.

Just 41 students turned up at the charity-run school, located in Wiang Pa Pao district in Chiang Rai. Before the blaze, the school had 142 children studying there.

Officials at the school said some students injured by the fire were still receiving treatment at |hospitals and could not return to class yet.

Six girls were injured when they fled from the blaze.

But they said some others had quit the school.

Students who showed up at Pitakkiatwittaya School yesterday did not receive regular lessons. The school played songs and provided counselling to students with psychologists and teachers.

“There will be no normal classes this week,” Pitakkiatwittaya School director Pim Wassana said.

She said teachers, students and all people involved in the school planned to go the dormitory where the fire took place to pray for those who died.

After the blaze, people donated more than Bt12.3 million to the school and for the victims’ families. Relevant authorities are discussing how best to help those affected with the money available.

Families of the deceased and injured have also received financial compensation from an insurance firm through policies taken out by the school.

The Institute of Forensic Medicine has helped identify all the victims, although most bodies were charred beyond recognition.

National Police Office deputy spokesman Colonel Krissana Pattanacharoen said officials would soon return the bodies to their families.

He said 30 people had lodged complaints with police over the fire.

“The culprits, if any, would face both criminal and civil proceedings,” Krissana said.

Provincial Police Region 5 deputy commissioner Maj-General Songtham Allapach said that the investigation into the fire was more than 80 per cent complete.

“We believe we will be able to conclude the investigation within one week,” he said.

More than 50 witnesses have provided information to police.

“We need to focus on two points,” he said. “Firstly, we need to determine whether the fire took place because of the recklessness of any person. Secondly, we need to find out whether the school had implemented efficient preventive measures.”

ALL 21 young survivors of a tragic fire at a charity school in Chiang Rai province either climbed or jumped out of their girls-only dormitory late on Sunday night to make their escape.

Another 17 girls lost their lives, with some quickly succumbing to suffocation.

Five of the survivors were injured.

The victims from the Pitakkiatwittaya School fire were between five and 12 years old.

Police Major-General Sant Sukhavach, who heads Scientific Crime Detection Centre 5, said yesterday evidence suggested the fire broke out because of a melting fluorescent tube.

“Drops from the melting fell on piles of clothes and caused the fire,” Sant said.

One of the survivors, 12-year-old Kwanjira Anantapetch, said the raging blaze was terrifying and had thrown the dormitory into chaos.

“I was so frightened that I could not really remember who was who during the escape. I only knew that I had to rush out of the dormitory,” the girl said.

She and her friend Suchada Kongasa were the first to alert their teacher when the fire broke out at 10.30pm on Sunday.

“We smelled the fire when we were heading to the toilet. So we rushed to our teacher,” Kwanjira said.

The next thing she did was to run through the building and shout “Fire! Fire!” inside shared bedrooms. “But not everyone woke up. Some also thought it was a prank,” Kwanjira said.

Student Makhata Taweejirakul said she rushed to check what was happening as soon as she heard someone shouting warnings.

“The blaze was so intense,” she said.

She then ran up the stairs also shouting warnings until she jumped from the second floor |of the dormitory to escape the blaze.

Kwanjira said the situation turned very dangerous within minutes of the first warning with smoke inundating bedrooms and parts of the flooring catching alight.

“Our teacher started tying bed sheets together and using it as a rope for children to scale down from the second floor,” Kwanjira said.

She and some other students moved to another room and used a nylon rope to escape from the building.

Kwanjira said not all the girls knew how to climb and some ended up injured.

“Some had their hands cut by the rope and some fell down on the ground,” Kwanjira said, her own left hand wrapped in a bandage.

Suchada sae Mua, a 21-year-old teacher, said she tried her best to help the students but the fire spread too fast to save everyone.

“She helped children first,” said Rewat Wassana, the school’s manager.

Pitakkiatwittaya School in Chiang Rai’s Wiang Pa Pao district is run by the Siam Ruam Jai Foundation, a charity that offers free classes to students. More than half of them are children from ethnic hilltribe groups.

Suharit Phumsawan, head of the foundation’s Wiang Pa Pao branch, said he and several volunteers rushed to the school after receiving reports about the fire.

“Our 10-member team and two fire trucks took about two hours to put the blaze under control,” he said, adding that when his team members entered the damaged dormitory, they witnessed heartbreaking scenes.

“As many as 17 kids died inside,” Suharit said.

Ekapan Hankla, one of the team members, said some bodies were charred and appeared to have fallen from the second floor.

“It’s the worst fire I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I feel distressed because all victims were just little kids.”

As of press time, officials were still in the process of identifying the victims.

A teacher at the school who identified herself only as “Ja” said parents had already been informed of the tragedy.

The school has insurance policies covering its students providing Bt200,000 to the families of children who were killed. Siam City Insurance will pay at least Bt3.4 million collectively to the 17 families of girls who were killed in the fire and at least Bt10,000 to each of those who were injured.

Pitakkiatwittaya School will be closed for at least a week as it deals with the aftermath of the blaze.

Wiang Pa Pao district chief Prasert Jitpleecheep, who rushed to the school in the wake of the fire, said the survivors were badly shaken.

The Mental Health Department’s deputy director-general Dr Pongkasem Khaimook said his agency would dispatch psychiatrists to help the survivors to cope with the tragedy.