As many as 20 girl students suffered a sun stroke and fell unconscious Tuesday at a government school near Chhattisgarh's capital city, officials said. They have been hospitalised.

The incident took place at a school in Urkura village on the outskirts of state capital Raipur.

'Surprisingly the girls, aged between 10-12 years, fell unconscious and that created panic among other students. We took the girls to Bhimrao Ambedkar Government Hospital in Raipur where doctors have termed sun stroke as the primary reason,' Shirish Tiwari, a local education department official, told IANS over phone.

The worried parents of the girls thronged to the hospital in the evening where doctors told them that the patients have to be monitored for the next 48 hours.