Jhalawar: A regular morning with the chatter of students assembling for prayers quickly turned into tragedy on Friday when a portion of their government school building collapsed, killing seven children and injuring 27, some of them critically.

The youngest of those who died was only six years old. Minutes into the morning at the Piplodi Government School in Rajasthan’s Jhalawar district, a part of the middle school building housing Classes 6 and 7 gave way, burying about 35 children, police said. Slabs of concrete, bricks and stones were piled up high and scores of people, including frantic parents and teachers, helped in the rescue effort, searching through the mounds of debris to pull out the children.

Police officials said they were informed of the tragedy in Piplodi village around 7.45 am.

"Seven children have died so far," Nand Kishore Verma, SHO of Manoharthana police station, about 80 km from the Jhalawar district headquarters, told PTI.

The injured were taken to the Jhalawar hospital and the Manoharthana health centre. A doctor at the district hospital said nine of the injured were in the Intensive Care Unit.

Five staffers of the school were suspended and a high-level inquiry into the matter ordered.

For the villagers of Piplodi, that was scant consolation.

Tempers ran high as locals protested, accusing the administration of ignoring their warnings that the building was dilapidated and arriving too late at the scene of the tragedy.

Protesters blocked an arterial road and burnt tyres, demanding action against all guilty officials and compensation to the families who lost their children.

Angry locals said they had informed the tehsildar and sub-divisional magistrate about the condition of the school building but no action was taken.

"This happened due to negligence of the administration," Balkishan, a local resident, told reporters.

He was sitting on the roadside close to the school when he heard a loud noise, turned around to see that a portion of the building had collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris. The sounds of children screaming broke through the noise.

"I, along with others present there, immediately rushed to building and started removing slabs and stones in order to rescue children. There was chaos. Children were crying and everyone was making efforts to pull them out. Many of us rushed the injured students to the health centre," Balkishan said.

According to Jhalawar collector Ajay Singh, however, the district administration had recently instructed the education department to give information about any dilapidated school building but this one did not figure in the list.

"I will get it investigated and action will be taken against whoever is found guilty," Singh said.