Outdoor restroom collapse kills 2 students

GUANGZHOU - Two children died and two others were injured after an outdoor restroom collapsed in a primary school in South China Friday, marking the country's latest accident involving young students.

A statement from the publicity bureau of Luoding city, Guangdong province, said the accident happened around 8:10 am at the primary school in the city's Silun township.

The statement said four children were injured when a wall of the outdoor restroom collapsed. Two children died in hospital after treatments failed, and another two were in stable condition.

Local authorities are looking into the case, and the city has ordered safety inspections for its middle and primary schools.

China has seen a string of incidents in recent months in which school children have been killed or injured in school bus crashes, violent attacks and child abuse cases. Experts say the tragedies, which have often occurred in rural schools, have exposed a lack of government supervision.

On Monday, 11 preschoolers died after the school van they were riding in plunged into a roadside pond in a rural area of Jiangxi Province. The privately-run kindergarten they attended was found to have been operating without a license for eight years.

On Dec 15, a man stormed into a village primary school and slashed 23 pupils with a knife in central Henan province. Surveillance footage showed that the school was poorly guarded at the time of the incident.