Islamabad: At least 27 students and a teacher were killed on Thursday after the roof of a private school caved in while classes were under way in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar, with authorities warning that the toll could climb further as rescuers continued to search the rubble, agencies reported.
The collapse took place at the Al-Khair Education Centre in Dir Colony, a densely populated part of the city. Officials said the roof of an upper floor gave way, crashing onto the first-floor roof, which in turn collapsed onto students sitting in classrooms below.
“It was a weak building structure,” Saeed said. “Its roof was overweight with construction on a weak structure that caused the collapse,” Peshawar Capital City Police chief Mian Saeed said.
Hospital authorities said most of the victims were brought dead to Lady Reading Hospital, along with 20 wounded people. Hospital spokesperson Mohammad Asim confirmed the casualties, while rescue teams worked to shift bodies and the injured to medical facilities.
Television footage showed ambulances rushing to the site as rescue workers pulled bloodied children from the debris. District emergency officer Iftikhar Khan said rescuers had so far recovered at least 45 children from the rubble, adding that there were reports of more children still buried beneath the collapsed structure.
“We have so far taken out at least 45 children from the rubble,” Khan said. “There are reports of more children being buried in the rubble.”
Earlier accounts had put the number of children killed at 17, with more than 40 people injured. The figures were revised upward as rescue operations progressed, underscoring the magnitude of the disaster.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “deep sorrow and grief over the loss of precious lives”. “The Prime Minister extends his condolences to the bereaved families and prays for them to have the strength and patience to bear this irreparable loss,” his office said in a statement.
Building and roof collapses remain a recurrent safety problem in Pakistan, where weak enforcement of construction rules and the use of poor-quality materials are frequently blamed. In June, more than a dozen children died when the roof of a tutoring centre collapsed in Lahore. Last year, 27 people were killed and 10 injured after a five-storey building came down in Lyari, one of Karachi’s poorest neighbourhoods.