By TheDailyNewsHub Reporter
At least 28 people, including 27 schoolchildren and a teacher, have been killed after the roof of a private school collapsed in Peshawar, northwestern Pakistan, with rescue workers continuing to search for survivors trapped beneath the rubble.
The incident occurred on Thursday, October 15, at the privately operated Al-Khair Education Center in Dir Colony, in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
According to Reuters and the Associated Press, the children who died were mostly younger than 13. More than three dozen other people were injured, with some reported to be in critical condition.
The death toll rose as emergency workers recovered victims from the debris, and authorities warned that the number of fatalities could increase because several children were still feared trapped.
District emergency officer Iftikhar Khan said rescuers had pulled at least 45 children from the collapsed building. Peshawar police chief Mian Saeed said only 47 of the 110 students believed to have been present in three classrooms had been accounted for through rescue efforts at the time of his statement.
The collapse reportedly occurred after the roof of an upper floor gave way, bringing down the structures below it and trapping pupils and staff under the debris.
Rescue personnel, assisted by local residents, rushed to the scene to remove rubble and evacuate the injured. Many of the victims were taken to Lady Reading Hospital, where medical authorities declared an emergency to cope with the casualties.
Parents gathered at the school and hospital as they sought information about their children and awaited updates from rescue teams.
Police said the school building was structurally weak. Authorities have ordered an investigation to establish the precise circumstances that led to the collapse, while the Associated Press reported that the school’s owner had been arrested.
No final findings on the cause of the incident had been announced in the reports available on Thursday.
The disaster has renewed concerns about building safety and enforcement of construction standards in Pakistan, where structural collapses have caused deaths in residential and public buildings.
In June, a roof collapse at a private tutoring centre in Lahore killed 14 children, according to Reuters. The repeated incidents have highlighted the risks posed by unsafe buildings, particularly where children gather for lessons.
Rescue operations in Peshawar remained focused on locating anyone still beneath the rubble as officials worked to establish the full scale of the tragedy.