The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Joas Kaijage
22 July 2008
Bukoba — About 84 students of Iluya Secondary School in Kagera Region miraculous escaped death in a devastating fire incident that gutted down a boys dormitory on Sunday evening.
The school in Bukoba rural district is run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania, North Western diocese.
Eyewitnesses said no one was injured when the fire erupted at around 8 p.m because all the students were attending preps classes.
In his press briefing early this week, Kagera regional
police commander Henry Salewi, said the fire started in one room and spread to the entire dormitory which had a total of 14 rooms.
Mr Salewi said the inferno destroyed students' property like textbooks, clothes and unspecified amount of money. Value of the destroyed building estimated at million of shillings is being worked out by the police.
The police are investigating the cause of the fire incident. According to preliminary investigations, police said the fire could have been caused by a kerosene lamp left in one of the rooms.
Also destroyed were 54 mattresses, 27 double-deck beds and two solar energy panels.
This is the second fire incident in the area. Tweyambe Secondary School which is close to Iluya, was recently gutted down by fire.
A Roman Catholic Church affiliate organisation, Solar Light for African Communities -Tanzania (Solicat) has initiated a solar light installation project in rural areas.
The initiative that was launched by former first lady Anna Mkapa seeks to avert fire disasters resulting from the use of kerosene lamps in schools in village in the region.
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