A roof collapse at a private school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar killed dozens of students and a teacher on Thursday morning, triggering emergency rescue operations and the arrest of the facility’s owner.
Casualty figures varied among officials and news outlets following the disaster at the Al-Khair Education Center. CBS News and Al Jazeera reported that at least 29 people died, including 28 children and a female teacher, while CNN reported that 32 children and a teacher were killed. Mohammad Asim, a spokesperson for Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, confirmed to news outlets that the facility declared an emergency as victims arrived, noting that several wounded children remained in critical condition.
The collapse happened before 8:48 a.m. local time as morning classes were starting, according to a rescue official cited by the BBC. The upper-level roof of the two-story building gave way, crashing down onto a lower classroom. Hospital officials noted that the deceased children ranged from six to 14 years old.
Rescue Efforts and Street Obstacles
Neighborhood residents were among the first to dig into the debris before emergency workers reached the scene within minutes, The Associated Press reported. Rescue crews operated under difficult conditions because the school was situated in a narrow alley in the city’s Dir district, where only one vehicle could pass at a time, making ambulance access and transport difficult, according to reports by CBS News and the BBC.
Hours after the incident, emergency officials announced that everyone trapped under the wreckage had been pulled out. District emergency officer Iftikhar Khan told Reuters that emergency teams had extracted at least 45 children from the rubble. Local hospital and police officials stated that between 20 and 50 other students suffered injuries in the collapse.
Mahwish Zaman, an injured teacher recovering at Lady Reading Hospital, told the AP that she was inside her classroom when the roof caved in, describing the sudden structural failure as feeling like the sky had fallen down. She said the school had about 1,200 enrolled students, while an Al Jazeera correspondent reported approximately 350 registered students.
Arrests and Inquiries Into Cause
Authorities have launched inquiries into the structural integrity of the facility and what triggered the failure. Peshawar police confirmed on social media that the owner of the school was taken into custody on allegations of negligence.
Officials offered several potential factors behind the disaster. Peshawar police chief Mian Saeed told Reuters that ongoing construction work had overloaded an already weak roof structure. Meanwhile, Bilal Ahmed of the local rescue services told CNN that heavy rainfall overnight had compromised the stability of the two-story building. A police officer told Geo News that investigators suspect substandard building materials were used in the facility’s construction.
Zahir Hussain, an area resident who ran to the scene after seeing people fleeing into the street, told CBS News that the overcrowded school occupied a residential structure that was entirely unfit for educational use, serving primarily students from low-income households.
Building collapses remain a persistent problem across Pakistan, where safety regulations and building codes often face poor enforcement. In July, a roof collapse at a tutoring facility under construction in Lahore killed 14 students, CNN reported.
Pakistani leaders expressed grief over the tragedy. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif offered sorrow over the loss of life, while President Asif Ali Zardari called for a full investigation. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regional education officials have ordered regulatory authorities to submit an incident report by Friday.
