At least 14 children killed after roof of Pakistan tuition centre collapses

One teacher and eight other children also injured after incident in Lahore.

At least 14 schoolchildren have been killed after the roof of a tutoring centre in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore collapsed, according to officials.

A teacher and eight other children were injured and being treated at a hospital, while police said the owner of the centre and another person had been arrested.

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Medical sources said the children killed in the collapse were aged between around four and 12, according to the AFP news agency.

Senior police official Faisal Kamran said rescuers were searching through the rubble after receiving reports that more children could be trapped beneath the debris, the Reuters news agency reported.

He added the centre was housed in an ageing building and that the roof of an unfinished second floor apparently collapsed because of poor construction quality.

‘Precious lives’

Workers had been repairing tiles on the building when the roof gave way and crushed the youngsters, a witness told AFP.

Broadcaster Geo News aired images of uniformed rescuers and civilians using shovels and their hands to dig through dirt and rubble in the partially collapsed building.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed his “grief over the loss of precious lives in the collapse of a tuition centre roof in Lahore’s Kahna area”.

Sharif “prayed for the speedy recovery of the injured and directed the authorities to provide them with every possible medical assistance”, according to a statement released by his office.

Khan said in a statement that “those responsible for the incident will be found through a transparent, unbiased and immediate investigation”.

Roof and building collapses are common across Pakistan, mainly due to poor safety standards and substandard construction materials.

Last July, 27 people were killed and 10 others injured when a five-storey building collapsed in Lyari, an impoverished area in the southern city of Karachi.