Over a Dozen Children Killed When Tutoring Center Roof Collapses

At least 14 schoolchildren were killed in Pakistan after the roof of a private tutoring center collapsed in a horrifying disaster that left grieving parents digging through rubble and demanding answers.

The tragedy unfolded Tuesday in Lahore, a major city in eastern Pakistan, when the roof of a tutoring center housed inside an aging building suddenly gave way, according to police and rescue officials.

Eight other children were injured and rushed to a hospital for treatment, senior police official Faisal Kamran said.

Authorities said the owner of the tutoring center and another person have been arrested as rescuers continued searching the wreckage amid fears that more children could still be trapped under the debris.

The tutoring center was reportedly operating in a building where an unfinished second floor was under construction. Officials believe the roof may have collapsed because of poor construction quality.

Witnesses described scenes of panic as ambulances and emergency crews raced to the neighborhood on the outskirts of Lahore. Residents also rushed in to help, using shovels and even their bare hands to claw through chunks of broken concrete and debris in a desperate attempt to reach the trapped children.

Hours later, the scene turned from frantic rescue to unbearable grief.

The bodies of children were handed back to their families as devastated parents wept outside hospitals and homes. Mothers and female relatives cried and beat their chests in mourning as neighbors gathered in the streets to comfort one another.

Most of the children who died lived nearby, turning the close-knit neighborhood into a place of mass heartbreak. Funeral prayers were expected to be held later Tuesday.

“We don’t know whose home to visit first to offer condolences for the loss of their children,” resident Zafar Iqbal said as he moved from one grieving family’s home to another.

But grief quickly mixed with outrage.

Residents demanded harsh punishment for the tutoring center’s owner, accusing him of allowing children to study inside an old and unsafe building.

Building collapses are a recurring problem in Pakistan, where safety rules are often poorly enforced and some structures are built with cheap materials to cut costs. Officials said the Lahore disaster has again raised urgent questions about whether children were put at risk in a building that should never have been used for classes.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif both expressed grief over the deaths. In separate statements, they offered condolences to the victims’ families, prayed for the recovery of the injured children, and called for stronger safety measures to prevent another tragedy.

For the families in Lahore, however, those promises came too late.

A place where children had gone to learn became the scene of an unthinkable disaster, leaving an entire neighborhood mourning young lives lost beneath a collapsed roof.