25 people, mostly students, killed in Malaysia school fire

KUALA LUMPUR: Twenty-five people, most of them students, were killed when a fire tore through a religious school in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, an official said.

The blaze broke out in the religious school, Tahfiz Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah, located in a mainly Malay settlement of Datuk Keramat just before dawn.

"The number of confirmed dead are 23 students and two wardens," Khirudin Drahman, director of Kuala Lumpur´s fire and rescue department told AFP.

"They could have died due to smoke inhalation or got trapped in the fire.

"I think it is one of the country´s worst fire disaster in the past 20 years. We are now investigating the cause of the fire."

A fire department official at the scene said that the blaze broke out in bedrooms before dawn, and firefighters from a nearby station were on the scene within minutes.