Teacher commits suicide after tragic death of 5 school children

Moscow, Oct 2 (UNI) A teacher at the high school that partially collapsed in Orenburg Region town in Russia's Urals yesterday, killing five teenagers, has committed suicide, the school principal Larisa Tsepovod said today.

Ms Tsepovod said the woman had hanged herself, adding that she was the former mistress for the five dead girls, who were in their final year at the Orenburg Region school.

''She has been teaching at school for 15 years and the death of the girls affected her immensely,'' RIA Novosti quoted the principal as saying.

Four other people, including three children, were injured during the building collapse.

An entire section of the two-storey building in the town of Belyayevka, 120 km from Orenburg region in the southeastern Urals, came crashing down, spreading debris over a wide area.

Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Investigation Committee at the Russian Prosecutor's Office in Moscow, flew to Belyayevka today to investigate the incident.

''It is necessary to find the true causes of the incident, to look into all the circumstances of the children's deaths in the school, to find those guilty and to take tough measures to prevent a repetition of similar school tragedies,'' Mr Bastrykin said.

UNI XC RJ GC1740