New Delhi: Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has rushed medical teams from public sector units under his ministry to Kumbakonam town in Tamil Nadu for giving relief to the victims of a fire tragedy at a school.

Medical teams from Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Indian Oil Corp (IOC) have been rushed to Kumbakonam town in Aiyar's constituency in Tamil Nadu where a number of school children have been burnt alive in a fire accident.

The Minister expressed deep shock and profound grief on the sad tragedy and said he was leaving for the accident site this evening (July 16, 2004).

He told that he was monitoring relief and rescue work and has asked the president of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, who is in Chennai, to rush to the spot.

"We are also exploring the possibility of central help to the victims," he said hoping the State administration would order an inquiry into the accident.

The Tamil Nadu Government today placed under suspension four education department officials including the Chief Education officer of the district, besides cancelling the licence of the private school, in which 80 children were charred to death in a devastating fire.

Speaking to newsmen after an hour-long visit to the fire accident site and the Government hospital, where 27 are still undergoing treatment for burns, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said the CEO, DEO and Assistant Education Officers, had been suspended.

"The licence of the school has also been cancelled," she said.

Jayalalithaa also announced from the Chief Minister's relief fund an ex-gratia payment of Rs.One lakh to the families of the children killed, Rs.25, 000 to those who received 50 per cent burns and Rs.10, 000 to those who sustained simple burn injuries.

Around 75 school children of primary classes and some teachers were charred to death and over 30 received grievous burns when a fire tore through their school in Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu's Thanjavur district today.

While most of the children died on-the-spot and were charred beyond recognition, some others succumbed to injuries in the hospital.

The fire, which is believed to have started from the kitchen when the noon meal for nursery children was being prepared, soon spread to a row of thatched roof classrooms where students from class one to class five were present, police and eyewitnesses said.

Five class rooms on the third floor of the Krishna Middle school were gutted in the fire that broke out at 11 AM. Around 900 students were present in the complex housing primary, middle and high schools.

While the high school and primary school students escaped on noticing the fire, the primary school children got trapped as the thatched roof collapsed on them making their movement difficult. Some teachers who tried to rescue the children also died.

The injured were admitted to government and some private hospitals where their condition was stated to be serious.

District Magistrate J Radhakrishnan, who was on the spot supervising the rescue and relief operations, told PTI that the fire completely destroyed five classrooms. Some of the victims also died of suffocation as the exit passage was narrow, he said.