DACCA, Pakistan, Dec. 9—Indian planes, apparently thins to bomb the Dacca airport, hit an orphanage here today. Authorities said they feared as many as 300 of the children had been killed and were buried under tons of rubble.

[The police put the death toll at at least 300, Reuters reported. The agency also quoted an Indian spokesman in New Delhi as having denied that Indian planes had bombed the orphanage. A dispatch from Karachi said an Indian raid there during the night had reportedly killed more than 60 civilians.]

By midmorning rescue workers had recovered only 30 bodies under shattered concrete slabs they were forced to remove by hand. Authorities said 350 to 400 orphans had been asleep in the brick and concrete building when the bomb struck.

Four bombs fell on the orphanage and nearby houses and authorities feared the total civilian death toll in the area could reach 500.

Officials said that the raid, about 4 A.M., was directed at the airport and, railway station, but that one Indian bomb made a direct hit on the Islam Mission Orphanage.

Last weekend, Indian bombs hit a housing colony of jute workers nine miles outside Dacca, killing as many as 300 civilians, authorities said.

The rumble of heavy bombing, perhaps 20 miles from the city, was audible Tuesday night and early yesterday.

The road to Gongi, 15 miles north, was quiet and almost deserted. Only a few military vehicles and three‐wheel scooter taxis dotted the roadway.

Here and there men carrying bundles slogged toward Dacca. There was no sound of battle on the road, but giant bomb craters testified to the pounding the area took two days ago when Indian planes hit the unfinished airport.

The Pakistan radio reported that the East Pakistani Government had closed all educational institutions and pressed teachers into civil defense service.

From Daccas jammed Intercontinental Hotel, which the International Red Cross contemplated taking over and turning into a neutral zone—the rumble of artillery could be heard during the night, signaling the tightening of the Indian ring about the city.

But guests lounged about the swimming pool, seemingly undisturbed by employes digging bomb shelters.

Since Saturday's big raids, life at the hotel has been a marathon of table tennis, chess, poker and drinking. The most popular sport is going to the roof of the building, the tallest in Dacca, with cameras and binoculars to catch glimpses of the war.

A note from the United States Consulate on the hotel bulletin board warned Americans to stay inside the hotel. In an upstairs corridor two boys resumed a two‐day‐old soccer game.

On the roof, an American woman cursed television cameramen for pointing out to her the danger of taking her three children there to watch the war. From that vantage point one could see the air raid on the Dacca airport. But when Indian planes zoomed low, shrapnel splattered on the roof of the 12‐story hotel.