At Least 30 Dead, Most of Them Children, After a School Roof Collapses in Peshawar

PESHAWAR, Pakistan

The school day had barely begun. At 8:48 a.m. on Thursday, the roof of a higher floor at the Al-Khair Education Centre gave way, crashed through the floor beneath it and brought two storeys down on the classrooms below, where children at the private school in Peshawar's Dir Colony were sitting in morning lessons. By the time the rescue operation was declared over, four to five hours later, at least 30 people were dead — nearly all of them children aged 13 or younger — and dozens more were injured.

Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwestern Pakistan, has known many grim mornings. This one unfolded in a narrow street in one of the city's inner neighbourhoods, where television pictures showed ambulances edging toward the school and rescuers carrying bloodied children out of the debris as parents and relatives crowded the alley, searching for news of their own.

A Toll Counted in Two Hospitals

The count of the dead rose through the day as bodies were recovered and taken to the city's hospitals, and officials cautioned it may not be final. Lady Reading Hospital, the city's main trauma facility, said most of the victims were brought there dead. Its spokesperson, Mohammad Asim, told local media that 29 children and a female teacher had died; some of the bodies were taken to a second facility, the Naseerullah Khan Babar Memorial Hospital. Reuters, citing police and rescue officials in its latest update, put the toll higher — at least 32 children and one teacher.

Asim said the dead included 12 girls and a female teacher, and that three injured children were in critical condition with head injuries. At least 45 people suffered major and minor injuries, according to Arif Khattak, the regional director of the provincial rescue department; hospital and police counts of the injured ranged higher still. The hospital said most of the 20 injured children treated there had been patched up and sent home. Every child killed or hurt was 13 or younger, officials said, and the death toll could still rise while the most seriously injured remain in critical condition.

Four Hours in a Narrow Street

The rescue fell to Rescue 1122, the province's emergency service, joined by Pakistan Army personnel, school staff and neighbours who dug alongside them. A rescue official said the upper roof had fallen onto the floor below and crushed the classroom beneath, trapping children inside. Television footage showed rescuers clawing through the debris with their bare hands. District emergency officer Iftikhar Khan said early in the operation that at least 45 children had been pulled out, while others were still reported buried.

The setting worked against them. The school stands on a street so narrow that only one vehicle can pass at a time, the BBC reported, complicating the movement of ambulances and heavy equipment. Police chief Mian Saeed put the number of students in the three affected classrooms at about 110; the school as a whole teaches roughly 1,200 children, from nursery age to fifth grade, an injured teacher, Mahwish Zaman, told the Associated Press. Zaman said she was in her own classroom when the roof came down and regained consciousness in a hospital bed. By shortly after noon, Deputy Commissioner Afaq Wazir confirmed the operation had concluded: the debris was cleared, and everyone who had been trapped had been reached.

A Weak Building, an Arrest, and an Investigation

Attention turned quickly to the building itself. "It was a weak building structure," the police chief said, adding that the roof had been overloaded with construction the structure could not bear. Police arrested the school's owner, who ran the institution as an education trust, and opened an investigation into the cause, including possible negligence. A rescue spokesman told CNN that heavy rainfall had caused the roof to give way, and some residents told local media the roof had been sagging after recent rains without being repaired; relatives at the scene accused the school of ignoring concerns about the building's condition and demanded that those responsible be held to account. There was no immediate comment from school officials.

The provincial government moved on several fronts. Education Secretary Inayatullah Waseem directed the Private Schools Regulatory Authority to deliver a report on the incident within 24 hours. The deputy commissioner announced a survey of all private school buildings in the district to check their safety. Governor Faisal Karim Kundi ordered an inquiry and directed that the injured receive the best available care.

Grief at the Top, and a Familiar Question

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed deep sorrow over the deaths and offered condolences to the bereaved families, directing that all possible medical assistance be provided to the injured, according to a statement from his office. President Asif Ali Zardari also expressed grief, directed authorities to ensure proper medical facilities for the injured, and called for a comprehensive investigation into building safety standards at educational institutions.

Building and roof collapses are a recurring tragedy in Pakistan, where poor construction standards and substandard materials are routinely blamed. In June, 14 children died when the roof of a private tuition centre collapsed in the Kahna area of Lahore. Thursday's collapse will reopen the question those earlier deaths left unanswered: how a building known to be weak was allowed to hold a school full of young children, and who was responsible for knowing. For the families of Dir Colony, the answers will arrive after the funerals. What happens next runs on three tracks — the police investigation, with the owner in custody; the regulator's report, due within a day; and the building survey, which will decide whether other Peshawar schools are ordered to repair, restrict or close their premises — while hospitals watch the children still in critical condition.

Previously coverage: Ukraine says Neptune strike damaged six Russian Su-34 jets at Borisoglebsk and the Nightly News Wrap-Up for October 15.