LAHORE: The collapse of two classroom roofs at a private school in Peshawar on Thursday killed at least 35 people, almost all of them young children, reviving questions in Lahore about whether the safety checks promised after a similar tragedy in the city in June have been carried through.
Thirty-four pupils and a teacher died when the roofs gave way at Al-Khair school in Dir Colony while second- and third-grade classes were in session, the Associated Press reported, citing officials. More than 50 were injured, some critically, and were taken to Lady Reading Hospital. Most of the dead were aged six to 12.
Peshawar police chief Saeed Ahmed said the three-storey building, which taught about 1,200 children from nursery to fifth grade, was structurally weak. Police arrested the owner, who blamed this week’s rain for weakening one roof. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, under governor’s rule since Sunday, has formed an inquiry committee, and Governor Faisal Karim Kundi sought a report on the cause.
Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif said she shared the anguish of the parents who had lost their children and prayed for the recovery of the injured. President Asif Ali Zardari called for a comprehensive investigation.
Pakistan Markazi Muslim League President Khalid Masood Sindhu demanded a transparent inquiry and structural audits of school buildings nationwide. Authorities, he said, must establish who allowed the school to operate in the building and whether safety standards had been met. He said party volunteers helped rescuers and donated blood at the hospital.
Lahore knows the pattern. On June 30, the roof of an unregistered tuition centre in a residential house in Kahna collapsed and killed 14 children. The Lahore Education Authority then ordered an emergency three-day survey of tuition centres and private academies to find unsafe and unregistered premises, and promised new rules for registering such centres. The district administration ordered illegal tuition centres closed.
Thursday’s collapse adds pressure for those findings to be published and enforced across the country. Many low-fee private schools in Pakistani cities operate from converted houses and multi-storey buildings that were never designed for classrooms, and few are inspected for structural safety once registered.
Leave a Reply