Chinese teacher hailed as flood hero

A Chinese teacher who saved more than 20 children from floods was hailed a hero yesterday, days after as many as 200 people, most of them pupils sitting at their desks, were killed.

A mountain torrent swept through the packed Shalan Central Primary School in northeastern Heilongjiang province on Friday.

Sha Xianjing told her pupils, aged about 10, to stand on their desks, then broke the classroom windows and swept away the broken glass with bleeding hands so the children had something to hold on to.