Five children died Thursday after an outdoor wall collapsed at a primary school in east China's Fujian Province, said local authorities.

The accident happened at 11:41 a.m. when a bulletin board wall collapsed at Jinsha Central Primary School at Langqi Town in Fuzhou, the provincial capital, according to a spokesman with the publicity department of the Fuzhou City Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Four children died and three were injured at the scene, and one died later in hospital, said the spokesman.

"I heard a big bang from the campus," said a man surnamed Chen, who ran a canteen only three meters from the school gate.

He heard witnesses say the tragedy happened when the victims, all fifth and sixth-graders, were working on a newspaper on the wall.

Most of the school's 600 students had gone home at that time for noon recess, according to a villager also surnamed Chen, who lived near the school.

The site has been cordoned off and police are investigating the cause of the accident.

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