An eight-year-old schoolgirl was killed when her schoolroom toppled on Monday in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, local sources confirmed on Wednesday.

The girl, Cong Xiuying, was among the 15 students and one teacher who were buried in the ruins when the roof of their schoolroom collapsed at 14:40, an official with the local education authority told Xinhua.

Cong died in an ambulance on the way to a local hospital, the official said without giving his name.

Nine others, including eight of Cong's classmates and their teacher, were injured in the accident and were receiving treatment at the No. 1 People's Hospital in Horqin district, he said.

The schoolroom was for first-graders at a primary school in Huimin village, Qinghe town of Horqin district in Tongliao, a city that borders the northeastern province of Liaoning, the official said.

The collapsed schoolroom is one of seven rooms in the school building which was built in 1996 of bricks and tiles and was put together by a steel structure.

A preliminary investigation at the site suggests deformed steel bars in the building caused the room to topple.

The school had only three teachers and 20 students, including 15 first-graders and five fifth-graders.

(Xinhau News Agency April 27, 2004)