This pretty high school student has been seriously burned after she caught fire in an explosion during a class chemistry experiment that was being carried out without teacher supervision because of COVID restrictions.

Annelise Lopes Andrade, 16, was treated by local firefighters before being taken to hospital after the incident took place at the Heli Alves high school in the city of Anapolis, which is a municipality in the state of Goias, in central Brazil on Tuesday 30th November.

She and four other students had been conducting an experiment using alcohol in class when there was a sudden explosion, according to a statement released by the school.

Annelise was taken to hospital by helicopter in a serious condition and she is reportedly “breathing with the help of devices”.

A coordinator at the school, named in local media reports as Marcos Gomes, explained that the students had been taking part in a physics and chemistry experiment when the incident occurred.

Gomes said that no teachers had been present at the time because the students were taking the class remotely this week and the five students involved in the incident had been allowed to use a classroom to record their experiment.

But he said that the students did not inform anyone that they were going to use alcohol in their chemistry experiment.

He added: “They said they were going to record a performance, but they didn’t explain what they were going to do. They said they set fire to the alcohol, but they thought it hadn’t caught on. So, they went to put on more [alcohol] and there was this explosion.”