The death toll from a devastating private school roof collapse in the Dir Colony area of Peshawar has risen to 34, including 33 schoolchildren and a female teacher, local hospital and rescue authorities confirmed on Thursday.
The catastrophe occurred on Thursday morning when the prefabricated roof structure of a multi-storey private school building suddenly caved in, trapping dozens of young students beneath heavy rubble and debris during morning classes.
According to casualty updates from municipal healthcare facilities, Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) received 33 fatalities, comprising 32 schoolchildren aged between six and 14 years and a 25-year-old teacher, identified as Samreen Bibi. While 17 injured children were discharged after receiving emergency care, one teacher and three students remain hospitalized under specialized medical observation. Separately, Nasirullah Khan Babar Memorial Hospital treated 33 injured students and confirmed the death of one pupil, bringing the aggregate fatality count to 34.
Rescue 1122 regional director Arif Khattak stated that emergency teams concluded a meticulous four-to-five-hour search-and-rescue operation involving 100 rescue personnel, 18 ambulances, and three heavy excavators.
“Initially, we recovered 16 bodies, but as rescue teams systematically shifted the concrete slabs and wreckage, the tally reached 29 fatalities on site,” Khattak said, noting that at least 45 critically injured individuals were evacuated to tertiary healthcare facilities across the provincial capital. Khattak highlighted that the structure was an unstable, multi-storey makeshift building lacking standard engineering reinforcements.
Local police confirmed that the owner of the private school has been taken into custody as criminal investigations commence into structural negligence, building code violations, and operational licensing.
Ground assessments by BBC Urdu indicated that the facility had been operating out of a poorly adapted structure utilizing prefabricated roofing rather than conventional reinforced concrete. Eyewitness accounts and wreckage patterns suggest that the failure of an upper-storey ceiling triggered a progressive structural collapse, crashing down into a ground-floor classroom housing young Grade 2 students.
Sources: Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) Peshawar, Rescue 1122 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, BBC Urdu, and District Police Peshawar.