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.
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