A student of Ashok Hall Girls? Higher Secondary School calls up her parents to tell them about the fire and their subsequent evacuation. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

About 1,200 students of Ashok Hall Girls? Higher Secondary School panicked on Friday afternoon after news of a fire spread fast across all the four floors. The scare prompted the school authorities to start an evacuation drive.

About 19 students from various classes had to be shifted to a nursing home after they complained of breathlessness.

Vice-principal A. Bhattacharya said in a written statement later in the day that at 12.45 pm, a mechanic was replacing the defective regulator of a gas cylinder, placed in the staff room on the top floor of the building.

?When he tried to test the new regulator, a flame leapt up. The teachers present informed our office and the flame was put out immediately. Around 19 students of a younger age-group were nervous and were taken ill by the sudden development, but no student or teacher was injured,? she added.

The students were shifted to Industry House, on Camac Street, by bus, borrowed from other schools, and parents were called up and asked to collect their wards.

It was five hours after the blaze was spotted that all the students were finally sent off home by school bus or with parents. Those taken to the nursing home were released after a basic check-up.