At least 34 children and one teacher died on Thursday when the roof of a school collapsed during morning classes in the city of Peshawar, in the northwest of Pakistan, police and rescue teams said.
Rescuers spent hours pulling children from the rubble of the Al-Khair Private Educational Center, while panicked parents and relatives gathered outside the building, seeking news of their loved ones.
Most of the students killed were under 13. At least 45 people suffered serious and minor injuries, said Arif Khattak, the regional director of the Rescue Department.
Television footage showed rescue teams sifting through the rubble with their hands and carrying bloodied children to awaiting ambulances, while relatives and residents crowded the narrow alley where the school stood.
The ceiling of an upper floor collapsed on the students in the classrooms below, destroying two floors of the building, a rescue officer said.
“Among the dead are 12 female students and one teacher,” said Mohammad Asim, spokesman for Lady Reading Hospital.
Three children were in critical condition, with head injuries, Asim said, adding that most of the injured who were taken to that hospital had already received treatment and been released.
The incident occurred at 8:48 a.m., local time, and the rescue operation lasted four to five hours, Khattak said.
“It was a fragile building structure,” said the Peshawar police chief, Mian Saeed. “The roof was overloaded with construction work on a fragile structure, which caused the collapse.”
Saeed said that the owner of the school had been arrested and that authorities had opened an investigation.
James Whitmore