Pakistan school roof collapse kills at least 27 children and teacher in Peshawar

At least 27 schoolchildren and a female teacher have died after a multi-storey school building collapsed during morning lessons in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar.

Hospital and rescue officials said the toll could climb higher, with some initial counts placing the dead as high as 33 pupils. Dozens more children were pulled injured from the wreckage, several in critical condition, while rescue teams worked into the afternoon to reach those still trapped beneath fallen concrete slabs.

Emergency workers were called to the privately run Al-Khair school in Peshawar's Dir Colony neighbourhood at 08:48 local time on Thursday, shortly after classes had begun.

How the building collapsed

Investigators said the failure started near the top of the structure. The roof of an upper-floor classroom gave way, sending heavy debris crashing straight through the floors below and bringing down ceilings across the building.

Emergency official Arif Khattak said the school occupied a structure that had been erected on a temporary basis. Peshawar Capital City Police chief Mian Saeed confirmed that classrooms across three storeys had collapsed.

Saeed said the concrete roof slabs were substandard and had been placed onto a weak structural frame that simply could not hold the weight. "Its roof was overweight with construction on a weak structure that caused the collapse," Saeed said, adding that the building was overloaded beyond what it could bear.

Around 115 children were inside the affected rooms when the ceilings caved in, according to police figures.

Emergency response and casualties

Rescue workers and local residents clawed through rubble by hand and with light machinery to pull survivors out. District emergency officer Iftikhar Khan said teams had recovered at least 45 children from the site during the first wave of operations.

Ambulances transported the wounded across the city to Lady Reading Hospital, where administrators declared a major emergency. Hospital spokesperson Mohammad Asim said more than 20 injured patients were admitted to the facility, with other rescue teams taking casualties to nearby clinics.

Asim confirmed that all of the pupils confirmed dead were aged 13 or younger.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued a statement expressing grief over the deaths and offering condolences to the families. Authorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have ordered an inquiry into the construction and licensing of the private facility. School management had not commented publicly on the collapse by Thursday afternoon.

Structural failures remain a frequent hazard in Pakistan, where commercial and residential premises frequently bypass local building regulations and municipal inspection standards. Similar incidents in recent months have killed children in Punjab and Sindh provinces, including a June roof collapse at an educational centre in Lahore that left 14 students dead.