13-year-old girl dies as school toilet roof collapses in Kolar

KOLAR: A class 7 student died after the roof and portion of the wall of her school toilet collapsed in Mulbagal, Kolar district, on Wednesday morning.
S Jyothsana, 13, a student of Morarji Desai Residential School, was the only daughter of Shankarappa and Vijayamma, residents of Bisanahalli. Shankarappa is an agriculturist and Vijayamma a homemaker.
The school, which comes under the government’s social welfare department, has 162 students from classes 6 to 10.
Minutes after Jyothsana went to the toilet, the roof and the walll collapsedstudents said. “We called the emergency service and started clearing the debris to trace the girl,” school authorities said. With multiple injuries, Jyothsana was rushed to a local hospital where she succumbed, police said.
K Rathnaiah, DDPI Kolar, inspected the school building and confirmed poor quality of construction.
“It’s a rented structure and the owner had constructed six toilets by raising the compound wall. The foundation of the newly constructed wall and roof were weak,” he said, adding, “We will file a police complaint against the owner for the poor work.”
Principal MV Bharathi said initially the school was to come up at Devarayasamudra, near Kolar. “But It was shifted here as the building at Devarayasamudra was not in good condition. On Wednesday, the high school students had unit tests and teachers were busy distributing questions papers when the incident took place,” she said.