What happened

The roof of a private school in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, caved in on 15 October while classes were in session. DW reported that the collapse happened at 08:48 local time and that 110 pupils were in three classrooms when the roof came down. The death toll differs by outlet: ANSA and the BBC cite at least 33 children and a teacher, Al Jazeera and Aktuálně.cz put it at 34 students and a teacher, and DW reports officials confirming at least 32 pupils under 13 and a teacher. UNICEF, writing on 16 October, reported 29 deaths, 28 of them minors. Several outlets say more than 50 people were injured, while ANSA gives a range of 20 to 51 depending on the source. The school, Al-Khair, is in the Dir Colony area of Peshawar.

The rescue

Emergency crews reached the site within five minutes of being alerted, according to the Irish Examiner, and everyone trapped beneath the rubble had been recovered by the time the operation ended on 15 October. Bilal Faizi, a spokesperson for emergency services in Peshawar, said rescuers pulled at least 40 children alive from the debris. He added that the collapsed roof was a traditional structure of mud and bricks and that some of the trapped children died of suffocation. An injured teacher, a woman speaking from her hospital bed, said she was in her classroom when she heard a loud crash from the floor above. The ceiling fell before she could warn her students, and she was unconscious when taken to hospital. She later learned that many of her students had died.

Cause and arrest

Police arrested the owner of the school. Peshawar police chief Saeed Ahmed said the building was structurally weak, and the owner told officers that recent rains had weakened the roof. A senior police officer cited by the BBC, as reported by ANSA, said the building had substandard floor slabs and was overloaded. DW reported that the top-floor roof fell onto the classrooms below and brought down two floors. Relatives say they had repeatedly warned the owner about rainwater seeping into classrooms. ANSA notes that the causes have yet to be established, and Al Jazeera reports that construction standards in Pakistan are widely considered poor, with builders often using substandard materials.

Government and UNICEF response

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government ordered its education department to set up district committees to inspect private school buildings across the province, covering both owned and rented premises. Inspectors must check roofs, ceilings, walls, columns, beams, foundations and staircases, then classify each building as safe, in need of repairs or improvements, or potentially unsafe. Findings and recommendations are due within three days. Al Jazeera reports conflicting accounts on whether public schools are also covered. On Friday, 16 October, government spokesperson Samar Haroon Bilour expressed grief over the deaths and injuries, appealed to parents to report schools housed in structurally weak buildings, and said inspections were under way to prevent similar tragedies. UNICEF called for urgent measures, periodic inspections of public and private schools and strict enforcement of safety standards, and offered psychosocial support, according to its Pakistan representative, Pernille Ironside. Foreign minister Ishaq Dar, who is also deputy prime minister, lamented the tragic loss of life and said child safety must remain an absolute priority.

Earlier collapses

Al Jazeera reports that the roof of a private tutoring centre in Lahore collapsed in June, killing 14 people. ANSA gives the date as 30 June, when 14 children died in Lahore. ANSA also cites a building collapse in Karachi in 2025 that killed at least 27 people. DW reports that three girls were killed near Umerkot in July 2026 after the outer wall of a state school fell, and that local media describe such incidents as increasingly common because of poor construction standards and weak maintenance.