Afət Ziyadqızı
A roof collapsed at a private school in Afridi Abad, also known as Dir Colony, in Peshawar, northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 17 students.
The Operative Information Center-OMM reports, citing Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, that Muhammad Asim, a spokesperson for Lady Reading Hospital, said all the children who died were 13 or younger. The hospital declared an emergency in response to the incident.
Bilal Ahmad Faizi, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s Rescue 1122 emergency service, said specialist teams were immediately sent to the disaster site. Rescuers pulled more than 20 seriously injured people, including students and teachers, from the rubble and took them to hospitals. Search-and-rescue operations are continuing.
Building collapses are frequently attributed by experts in Pakistan to weak enforcement of technical safety standards, insufficient government oversight and the use of substandard construction materials. School roofs and other structures can pose particular risks where building inspections and safety rules are not consistently enforced.
A similar incident occurred in June this year in the Kahna area of Lahore, where 14 schoolchildren died after the roof of a private coaching centre collapsed.
