'Sir, the ceiling is falling': Tragedy strikes school in Jhalawar as students' warnings go unheeded

Kota: In a heart-wrenching incident that has shaken the quiet village of Piplodi in Jhalawar, seven young lives were lost and over 20 others were injured when a classroom ceiling collapsed Friday morning, turning a routine school day into a nightmare for the community of 1,100 residents.

"We complained to sir about falling brick pieces from the ceiling but he ignored us and asked us to sit down quietly," recalled a tearful young girl, one of the survivors of the tragedy.

According to students, their teachers were casually eating poha (flattened rice) when they reported the dangerous conditions, a detail that has sparked outrage among local residents.

The morning peace at govt upper primary school in Piplodi was shattered at 7:40am when the thunderous sound of collapsing walls echoed through the village. Witnesses reported a cacophony of screams and cries as the structure gave way, sending clouds of dust spiralling into the air. In the chaos that followed, villagers rushed to the scene to assist in the rescue operations.

Ram Prasad Lodha, the village sarpanch (elected gram panchayat head), rushed to the scene with his JCB machine. "The screams of children will haunt me forever," he said, describing the frantic 20-minute rescue operation where villagers desperately dug through debris to save trapped students.

Adding to the tragedy was the absence of immediate medical help. "We had to transport injured children on motorcycles because there was no ambulance available," said Lodha, noting that ambulances arrived 45 minutes after the incident.

Jhalawar's district education officer, Narso Meena, said that continuous rainfall had led to seepage that compromised the structural integrity of the classroom. "We had advised the principal to avoid using the room with water seepage," she asserted, defending the school administration's oversight.

The incident has exposed the stark reality of infrastructure neglect in rural schools. While education officials maintained that recent rainfall caused the collapse, locals told a different story. "This building had been crying for maintenance for decades; it was over 30 years old," said Dulichand Lodha, a village resident who witnessed the collapse.

The deceased were identified as 7-year-old Kanha, 10-year-old Kundan, 11-year-old Harish, 13-year-old Payal, 10-year-old Meena, 8-year-old Kartik, all from Piplodi, and 12-year-old Priyanka from Chandpura.

For the families of the seven deceased children and those of the 10 critically injured students currently receiving treatment at SRG Hospital, the suspension of five teachers, including the principal, offers little consolation.

As one parent, who wished to remain anonymous, put it, "Our children went to school to build their future, not to have it crumble around them." "We had raised concerns about the building's condition before," lamented one mother, tears streaming down her face.

The tragedy prompted the state education minister to order a high-level inquiry but for the village of Piplodi, the scars of this preventable disaster will take long to heal.