School Roof Collapse in Peshawar Kills at Least 34 Children and a Teacher

Update: Governor announces compensation for the families

Updated 06:27 UTC, Friday: Governor Faisal Karim Kundi attended funeral prayers for the victims on Thursday and announced compensation of 1 million rupees for each bereaved family and 200,000 rupees for each injured person, Dawn and Kashmir English reported. He said the inquiry would start by establishing who issued the no objection certificate that allowed the school to operate.

Late on Thursday night, the provincial Human Resources Department set up a fact finding committee led by Transport Secretary Zubair Ahmed, with Chief Engineer Jamshid Ali Khan of the Communication and Works Department, Dawn reported. The committee is to examine the building, the quality of its construction and any negligence by the school management or regulators, and to report to the chief secretary within seven days. The toll stands at at least 34 children and a teacher.

Update: Governor orders safety audit of schools across the province

Updated 16:21 UTC, Thursday: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi has ordered a safety audit of all schools across the province after the collapse in Peshawar, to identify risks and ensure corrective measures are taken where needed, the BBC and WE News English reported. He said the safety of children could not be compromised.

Police chief Mian Saeed described the collapse as a case of gross negligence, warned that the building was still extremely dangerous and urged people to stay away from it. He said investigators would examine possible violations of building rules. Emergency official Arif Khattak told the BBC the school was housed in a building that had been put up on a temporary basis, and Saeed said classrooms on three floors were brought down, with about 30 pupils in the top classroom, 40 in the middle and 45 on the ground floor.

The BBC hospital count put the toll at at least 33 pupils and a teacher, with Lady Reading Hospital reporting 32 children and a teacher dead and Naseerullah Khan Babar Memorial Hospital reporting one more child. The later overall count of at least 34 children and a teacher remains the highest official count reported so far.

Update: Death toll rises to 34 children and a teacher

Updated 13:47 UTC, Thursday: The death toll has risen again, to at least 34 children and a teacher, in the latest Associated Press count from hospital and rescue officials. More than 50 other people were injured. The children were between 6 and 12 years old, with the oldest 14, Lady Reading Hospital spokesman Mohammad Asim said.

Emergency services spokesman Bilal Faizi said everyone trapped under the rubble had been pulled out and the debris had been cleared. He told the Associated Press that the roofs of two classrooms fell while second and third grade children were inside with their teachers, that ambulances and disaster teams reached the school within five minutes, and that nearly 100 rescuers joined the work. He credited the fast evacuation with saving at least 40 lives.

As grief spread through Dir Colony, mosque loudspeakers urged residents to attend mass funeral prayers at the nearby Rehman Baba cemetery. Most of the children killed lived in the neighborhood, residents said, and ambulances were seen taking bodies from the hospital to family homes.

Police said the arrested school owner, Mohammad Khan, blamed this week's rains for weakening one of the roofs. The investigation is still under way. The earlier count of 32 children, in the update below, has been replaced by this later count.

Update: Death toll rises to 32 children

Updated 11:10 UTC, Thursday: The death toll has risen to at least 32 children and a teacher, in later counts from hospital and rescue officials reported by CNN and Sky News. Lady Reading Hospital spokesman Mohammad Asim said 12 girls were among the dead, and three children were in critical condition with head injuries. Rescue officials said the work at the school lasted four to five hours after the collapse at 8:48 a.m. local time, and confirmed that everyone trapped had been freed. Relatives at the school and the hospital demanded that those responsible be punished. The first count of 28 children, in the report below, has been replaced by this later official count.

At least 28 children and a female teacher were killed on Thursday, October 15, when the roof of a private school collapsed during morning classes in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwestern Pakistan. More than 50 other people were injured, a hospital spokesman said. Six girls were among the dead.

The school, the Al-Khair Education Centre, stands in Dir Colony, a crowded part of the city. A rescue official said the roof of an upper floor fell onto the floor below, which then gave way over the classrooms underneath. All of the children killed or injured were 13 or younger, according to Mohammad Asim, a spokesman for Lady Reading Hospital, where most of the victims were taken.

Police chief Mian Saeed said 110 students were in three classrooms at the time of the collapse. District emergency officer Iftikhar Khan said crews had pulled at least 45 children from the rubble in the first hours. Hours later, rescue officials said everyone who had been trapped was out, and crews had moved on to clearing debris.

Neighbors reached the school first

People who live near the school were among the first to start digging and carrying children out. Witnesses told the Associated Press that rescue workers arrived within minutes of the alert. Ambulances moved through the narrow streets around the school while parents gathered outside and at Lady Reading Hospital, waiting for word about their children.

The hospital declared an emergency. Asim said some of the injured were in critical condition. One injured teacher, Mahwish Zaman, told the Associated Press from her hospital bed that the school enrolled an estimated 1,200 students, from nursery through fifth grade. She said she was in her classroom when the roof came down and woke up later in the hospital.

A resident, Samiullah Khan, said he rushed to the school after hearing the news and helped pull three girls out. His own son, a student at the school, survived because he had stepped out of his classroom to get a drink of water, Khan said.

Owner arrested, cause under investigation

The cause of the collapse is still under investigation. Peshawar police chief Saeed Ahmed said the building was structurally weak and that the school owner had been arrested. Police chief Mian Saeed told Reuters the roof was overweight for the weak structure under it. A rescue official told CNN that heavy rainfall had caused the roof to fall. Officials have not yet given a final finding, and those accounts have not been reconciled.

The provincial government said a committee has been formed to investigate the collapse and report on its cause. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi asked for that report and told officials to give the injured children the best care available.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif both expressed sorrow over the deaths and offered condolences to the families. Zardari called for a full investigation and said school buildings must be checked against safety standards so a collapse like this does not happen again.

Building collapses happen often in Pakistan. The Associated Press and CNN both note that construction rules are weakly enforced and that many buildings go up with poor materials. For the families in Dir Colony, that wider problem is now a list of names at one hospital, and a school that did not open its gates on Friday.

This story will be updated as officials confirm more names, causes and casualty figures.