PESHAWAR: The roof of a school collapsed in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar on Thursday, killing 32 students, most of them under 14, and a teacher, officials said, blaming the incident on dilapidated infrastructure.
Twenty other students were taken to hospital as residents and rescuers scrambled to pull children from beneath the rubble. Others in the densely populated neighbourhood described how they narrowly escaped the tragedy.
A man who gave only his first name, Sohail, told AFP that “everyone began screaming in panic” when his niece, who had escaped the building, arrived home and told them it had collapsed.
“When I arrived at the scene, I saw around 10 to 15 children trapped beneath the rubble, with debris piled up to their necks. We quickly pulled them out,” he said.
Asim Khan of Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital said the death toll had risen to 33 by Thursday evening, with most of the victims aged between four and 14, along with a female teacher.
Most of the children taken to the hospital had been discharged. Three children who sustained head injuries had been admitted, Khan said.
A spokesman for the emergency rescue service in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said schoolchildren were crushed and trapped after the roof gave way.
“When the Rescue 1122 emergency response teams arrived at the scene, they found that one roof had collapsed onto another, causing the classroom below to be crushed and trapping children inside,” spokesman Bilal Ahmad Faizi said.
AFP journalists saw dozens of people at the scene.
Images released by the emergency services showed rescue workers in high-visibility vests scrambling to clear debris, rubble and dirt.
A senior official in Peshawar told AFP that initial reports suggested the roof collapse was caused by “weak infrastructure”.
“The school owner has been detained,” the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
‘Deep sorrow’
Bodies wrapped in white cloth were carried out of the hospital as volunteers arrived to help identify the victims.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “deep sorrow and grief over the loss of precious lives”, according to a post on X.
“My heart goes out to the bereaved families of the children and the teacher who lost their lives in this tragic incident,” he said.
President Asif Ali Zardari described the roof collapse as a “heartbreaking tragedy”.
Peshawar resident Sher Ahmed blamed “substandard construction materials” for the tragedy and called for an investigation.
“With profound grief and sorrow, I urge the authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and take strict action against anyone found responsible so that such tragedies can be prevented in the future,” he said.
Building collapses are common in Pakistan, largely because of poor safety standards and the use of substandard construction materials in the South Asian nation of more than 240 million people.
In June, more than a dozen children were killed when a roof collapsed at a tutoring centre in the eastern city of Lahore.
In 2025, 27 people were killed and 10 injured when a five-storey building collapsed in the impoverished Lyari area of the southern city of Karachi.