Teacher Explains about Drying Laundry over Elementary School Fire

Tokyo, June 24 (Jiji Press)–A teacher has said she was drying laundry in the music preparation room where a fire started last week in an elementary school in Tokyo’s Kita Ward, police sources said Wednesday. Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department is investigating a possible causal link between the teacher’s explanation and the fire at Takinogawa Daisan Elementary School, which left 11 people injured, on suspicion of negligent fire-setting. In a voluntary hearing on Tuesday, the teacher in her 40s said that she was drying laundry in the music preparation room on the fourth floor of the school, using circulators, the police said. She asked whether children and other teachers are safe, showing how sorry she was, according to the police. The investigators will continue to hear from her as a person of interest. In addition to a burnt electric heater and multiple circulators, a power strip with multiple outlets was found in the scene. An examination after dismantling the electric heater found that it was likely energized when the fire started. The police found something like fibers sticking to a wreckage fragment. Whether the heater was on at that time is unknown, according to the police. The fire started at around 11 a.m. on Friday, burning some 200 square meters, including a music room next to the preparation room. Children who were taking a class in the music room evacuated to the ledge of the building, with a width of about 80 centimeters, outside the windows. A boy and the teacher broke bones, while seven students and two teachers suffered smoke inhalation. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]