admin
town yesterday morning.
The school is along the Chivhu-Masvingo highway. The fire gutted a block consisting of seven classrooms, one laboratory, a School Development Association office and fiveoffices that were being used as storerooms.
No one was injured.
The fire broke out around 7am and efforts to extinguish it were fruitless.
When The Herald crew visited the school, smoke was billowing from the remnants while corrugated iron sheets dangled from the roof.
Pupils were sent home soon after the fire broke out.
School head Mr Munyaradzi Munemo said furniture in the first class to catch fire was completely destroyed.
“The fire started a few minutes before 7am in one of the Form 3 classrooms.
“A primary school child who was passing by saw the fire and informed two girls who had just arrived.
“All the laboratory equipment and furniture was burnt.
“We managed to retrieve furniture and stationery in other six classrooms although the wooden floor and ceiling exacerbated the rate at which the fire burnt,” Mr Munemo said.
He said they tried to call the Chivhu fire department which referred them to Harare which told them that it did not have water.
Mr Munemo narrated that pupils and teachers had to rush with buckets of water before a fire tender from Masvingo arrived. The whole building had been burnt down.
He appealed for assistance in building material and stationery to reconstruct the block.
Deputy Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Lazarus Dokora said the ministry received the report and now awaits help from appropriate agencies.
“We received information when the building was still burning and efforts to get help from the local fire department were fruitless since they had no functional system. It is unfortunate such a huge investment had to go up in smoke,” he said.
Deputy Minister Dokora said the ministry is waiting for a report to ascertain the root cause of the fire.
Online Reporter