Three students of a residential coaching centre, including two girls, died of a snake bite in Odisha’s Keonjhar district on Sunday.

The incident has been reported from Nischintapur village under Baria police station in the mineral-rich district, about 230km from here.

The incident took place when students were sleeping at their hostel in the coaching centre. The deceased has been identified as Raja Nayak, 12, Shehashree Nayak, 10, and Elina Nayak, 7. Another student, Akash Nayak, 12, is battling for life at the hospital.

Sources said the poisonous snake bit the students around midnight when they were sleeping. All of them were sleeping on the floor of the coaching centre because of lack of beds.

When the students started vomiting around early morning on Sunday, the coaching centre officials immediately took all four students to the district headquarters hospital in Keonjhar. “But three of them were declared dead. Another student was immediately shifted to SCB Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack for treatment,” said Keonjhar district administration officials.

One of the mothers of the deceased told reporters, “On Saturday night, I talked to my daughter over the phone. But today morning around 7.30am, I received a phone call from the coaching centre about the death of my daughter.”

Following the incident, all other students of the coaching centre left for their homes. Students from Class 1 to Class VII take coaching from the centre. The coaching centre has a student strength of 60.

The Keonjhar district administration ordered a probe into the incident and asked the district education officer to conduct an investigation and submit a report.

The state has lost 5,694 lives to snake bites since 2015-16 with the average annual death exceeding 800, making Odisha one of the snakebite-prone states in the country.