Families of the children who died when a school roof came down in Peshawar demanded “justice”, a day after the tragedy claimed more than 30 young lives. The Peshawar school collapse killed a woman teacher and 34 students on Thursday morning, most of them younger than 14.
Dozens of mourners gathered outside the building on Friday to remember the victims. Officials have blamed the disaster on dilapidated infrastructure.
“The parents of all these children must receive justice,” said Muhammad Wahab, a tailor who lost his 11-year-old nephew, Hammad. Speaking to AFP, he appealed directly to the country’s rulers and recalled that the boy had been “doing well in school” before the accident.
One heartbroken father showed AFP a photo on his phone of his young daughter, dressed in red and gold, who did not survive. Another parent, Asadullah, said he lost a son, a nephew and three other close relatives.
“The children were good students and often achieved top positions in their classes,” he told AFP. “They happily went to school every day.”
Residents and rescue workers described scenes of panic as people rushed to pull children from the rubble. A man identified as Sohail said the alarm spread when his niece, who had managed to escape, came home and told the family the building had fallen.
“Everyone began screaming in panic,” he told AFP. When he reached the school, he said, he saw 10 to 15 children trapped under the debris, some buried up to their necks. “We quickly pulled them out,” he said.
A senior official in Peshawar told AFP that early reports pointed to “weak infrastructure” as the cause of the roof collapse. He confirmed that the school owner had been detained, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “deep sorrow and grief over the loss of precious lives” in a post on X. President Asif Ali Zardari called the incident a “heartbreaking tragedy”.
Building collapses are common in Pakistan, largely because of poor safety standards and substandard construction materials. For the families in Peshawar, that grim pattern offers little comfort, and their demand for accountability is only growing louder.