PESHAWAR/ISLAMABAD: At least 29 people, including 27 children and two female teachers, were killed when the roof of a private school collapsed in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar on Thursday, hospital officials said.

Police detained the owner of the school in the city’s Dir Colony area, where more than 110 students attended an institute housed in a three-story building. Authorities said an investigation would determine the cause of the collapse.

The disaster has renewed concerns about the safety of private educational institutions in Pakistan, where aging buildings, unauthorized construction and inadequate enforcement of safety regulations have contributed to deadly collapses, including one that killed 14 children in Lahore in June.

“Twenty-nine have so far been killed and over a dozen injured have been shifted to LRH following the Dir Colony incident,” Muhammad Asim, spokesperson for Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), said in a statement. “Two female teachers are among those killed.”

Peshawar Capital City Police Officer Dr. Mian Saeed said police had taken the school’s owner into custody.

“This was being run by a welfare trust by the name of Al-Khair,” Saeed told reporters. “We have taken the owner into custody for now.”

He said more than 110 seminary students were studying across the building’s three floors and accused those responsible for the premises of negligence.

“To sit children of three classes in such a congested alley and in such a fragile building, I believe there has been a huge negligence,” Saeed said.

“We will register a first information report against the owners,” he added, saying a formal inquiry would establish the cause of the collapse.

A Rescue 1122 official said emergency services received a call at around 8:48 a.m. and found that two roofs had collapsed onto one another.

The official said 16 ambulances, two disaster response vehicles and more than 60 rescue personnel had been deployed to search the debris and transport casualties to hospitals.

In June, 14 children were killed when the roof of a private tuition center collapsed during classes in Lahore’s Kahna area. The center was reportedly operating without registration in an aging residential building, and police subsequently registered a case against its owners and a contractor.

The Lahore tragedy prompted calls for stricter oversight of private educational facilities, particularly those operating in residential buildings without adequate safety inspections.

In July 2025, a five-story residential building collapsed in Karachi’s Lyari neighborhood, killing 27 people and injuring several others, highlighting wider concerns about building safety in Pakistan.