Roof collapse kills 14 children at Lahore tuition centre

Fourteen children were killed when the roof of a private tuition centre collapsed in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, officials said, as authorities opened an investigation and arrested two people in the initial inquiry.

The collapse happened in Kahna, a suburb of Lahore, while children were inside the centre. Officials said the victims included young children, with ages reported between about four and 12. Farooq Ahmed, a spokesman for the emergency service Rescue 1122, told the BBC that rescuers received a call about the incident at 16:45 local time and completed the rescue operation within an hour.

Ahmed said most of those recovered from the scene were between seven and 11 years old. The BBC reported that another five people were thought to be injured. Al Jazeera, citing officials, reported that a teacher and eight other children were injured and were being treated at a hospital.

Police said the owner of the tuition centre and another person had been arrested, Al Jazeera reported. Authorities also launched an investigation into what caused the roof to give way.

Senior police official Faisal Kamran said rescuers searched through the rubble after reports that more children could be trapped beneath the debris, Reuters reported. Kamran said the centre was located in an ageing building and that the roof of an unfinished second floor appeared to have collapsed because of poor construction quality, according to Reuters.

A witness told AFP that workers had been repairing tiles on the building when the roof gave way and crushed the children. Geo News aired images of uniformed rescuers and civilians using shovels and their hands to dig through dirt and rubble in the partially collapsed building, Al Jazeera reported.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed his “grief over the loss of precious lives in the collapse of a tuition centre roof in Lahore’s Kahna area,” according to a statement from his office. The statement said Sharif “prayed for the speedy recovery of the injured and directed the authorities to provide them with every possible medical assistance.”

Al Jazeera reported that a statement from Khan said “those responsible for the incident will be found through a transparent, unbiased and immediate investigation.”

Building and roof collapses are common across Pakistan, mainly because of poor safety standards and substandard construction materials, Al Jazeera reported. Last July, 27 people were killed and 10 others injured when a five-storey building collapsed in Lyari, an impoverished area in the southern city of Karachi, the outlet reported.