A private school roof collapsed in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least 27 children and a female teacher and injuring more than three dozen others, according to a hospital spokesman. Rescuers continued searching the wreckage for people who might still be trapped.
Several children remained buried beneath the debris in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, emergency services spokesman Bilal Faizi said.
Hospital spokesman Mohammad Asim confirmed the death toll and said some of the injured were in critical condition. All of the children killed or wounded were 13 or younger, he added.
The hospital declared an emergency as medical teams treated the injured. At the scene, rescue workers cleared rubble in an effort to reach anyone still trapped.
Witnesses said local residents were among the first to respond after the roof gave way at the school in a congested neighborhood in central Peshawar.
Rescue teams reached the site within minutes of receiving the alert, according to accounts from the scene.
Resident Mohammad Khan said rescuers were carefully removing the debris as they searched for children and staff members believed to be trapped beneath the collapsed roof.
Distraught parents gathered outside the school and at the state-run Lady Reading Hospital, waiting for news and uncertain whether their children had survived.
Authorities were investigating what caused the collapse. Peshawar police chief Saeed Ahmed said the school’s owner had been arrested and described the building as structurally weak.
The disaster followed a roof collapse at a tutoring center under construction in Lahore in July, an incident that killed four schoolchildren.
Building collapses are common in Pakistan, where construction standards are often weakly enforced. Many buildings are constructed with substandard materials, while safety rules are frequently disregarded to cut costs.
