Photo: Mohammed Ahmed Arsalan Khan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
At least 34 people, almost all of them schoolchildren, were killed on Thursday (October 15) when the roof of a private school caved in during morning classes in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Hospital officials said most of the dead were 13 or younger, and some local officials put the toll at 35. Police have arrested the school’s owner.
Three floors of classrooms came down
The collapse took place at the Al-Khair school in Dir Colony, a congested part of the inner city. Rescue services were alerted at 8:48 am local time, shortly after lessons had started. A rescue official said the roof of a classroom on the upper floor gave way first, and the falling debris crashed through the ceilings of the rooms beneath it.
Peshawar police chief Mian Saeed said classrooms on all three floors were brought down. By his account, about 30 pupils were in the top-floor class, around 40 on the middle floor and about 45 on the ground floor. He said the roof slabs were substandard and the structure had been overloaded beyond what it could bear. An emergency official said the building had been put up on a temporary basis.
Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital said 32 children and a teacher were brought in dead, with more bodies taken to a second hospital. Of the 20 injured children it received, most were discharged after first aid, while three with head injuries remained in critical condition.
Narrow lanes slowed the rescue
The school stands on a street wide enough for only one vehicle at a time, which made it hard for ambulances and rescue teams to reach the site and carry the injured out. Local residents, among them a teacher from a nearby school, rushed in and pulled children out of the rubble by hand and with shovels. Army personnel joined the operation, and the provincial police chief ordered a green corridor so ambulances could move without hold-ups. The district administration later said everyone trapped under the debris had been brought out.
This is a case of gross negligence. We will examine whether there were any violations of building codes.
Mian Saeed, Peshawar police chief
Inquiries and a province-wide audit
Police said a formal case would be registered against the school’s owners. The provincial education department has formed an inquiry committee to look into the cause of the collapse, the condition of the building and any administrative lapses, and has asked for its report within a day. The Peshawar deputy commissioner has ordered a separate probe. According to international news agency reports, relatives of the victims accused the school of ignoring concerns about the state of the building.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi ordered a safety audit of all schools in the province to identify risks and fix them. “We cannot allow the safety of our children to be compromised,” he said. President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief, and Sharif directed officials to ensure the best possible treatment for the injured.
Why it matters
Building and roof collapses are common in Pakistan and are often blamed on weak safety standards and cheap construction material. The inquiry’s findings, and whether the governor’s audit leads to closures or repairs, will show whether Thursday’s deaths bring any lasting change in how such schools are regulated.
