Roof collapse at Pakistan tutoring centre kills 14 children, injures five

LAHORE, July 1 — A roof collapse at a tutoring centre in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore killed at least 14 children and injured five yesterday, officials said.

Workers had been repairing tiles on the decrepit building when the roof gave way and crushed the youngsters, a witness told AFP.

Grieving relatives wept as they gathered around the bodies of the young victims, shrouded in white sheets, AFP observed.

“A roof collapse in Basti Eid Gah, Kahna Nau, has claimed the lives of 14 children, while five others were injured,” an Edhi ambulance service spokesperson said, referring to an area to the south of Pakistan’s second-largest city, in Punjab province.

The city’s top civilian official, Commissioner Marryam Khan, confirmed the death toll and said a teacher had also been injured.

Broadcaster Geo News aired images of uniformed rescuers and civilians using spades and their hands to dig through dirt and rubble in the partially collapsed building.

A 45-year-old man named Zaheer told AFP his niece was among the victims.

“The roof was in poor shape,” he said, adding that repair work was being carried out on tiles while the children studied.

“Suddenly the roof collapsed on top of quite a few children,” he said. “They put a lot of weight on the roof and that’s why this has happened.”

Authorities promised an investigation and provincial police said on X that two people had been taken into custody over the disaster.

Medical sources said the children killed in the collapse were aged between around four and 12.

Investigation under way 

Police said they were collecting evidence at the scene and posted video of officers speaking with rescuers wearing hardhats at the building, which was in a tightly packed residential area.

Khan, Lahore’s commissioner, said in a statement that “those responsible for the incident will be found through a transparent, unbiased and immediate investigation”.

According to a statement from the Punjab education minister, the tutoring centre was in a private house that belonged to a teacher educating children from a disadvantaged neighbourhood.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief and said he “prayed for the speedy recovery of the injured and directed the authorities to provide them with every possible medical assistance”, according to a statement released by his office.

Roof and building collapses are common across Pakistan, mainly because of poor safety standards and shoddy construction materials in the South Asian country of more than 240 million people.

Last July, 27 people were killed and 10 injured when a five-storey building collapsed in the impoverished area of Lyari in the southern city of Karachi. — AFP