Summary
- PESHAWAR (Dir Colony) : At least 17 people including 16 children aged around 13 and a female teacher were martyred and 25 critically injured when the rear portion of a three-storey building of Al-Khair School and Madrassa collapsed after week-long intermittent night rains, officials and eyewitnesses said.
- *How It Collapsed – Domino Effect:* According to eyewitnesses and rescue officials, the roofs were made of mud, girders and debris (Mud Gaara).
- *Casualties Confirmed:* > “17 bodies have been shifted to hospitals including 16 children around 13 years and one female teacher.
PESHAWAR (Dir Colony) : At least 17 people including 16 children aged around 13 and a female teacher were martyred and 25 critically injured when the rear portion of a three-storey building of Al-Khair School and Madrassa collapsed after week-long intermittent night rains, officials and eyewitnesses said. Over 75 children were present in the building at the time.
*How It Collapsed – Domino Effect:*
According to eyewitnesses and rescue officials, the roofs were made of mud, girders and debris (Mud Gaara). When one roof collapsed, it fell on the roof below it, and then both collapsed onto the roof below that.
> “The roofs were made of mud, girders and mud-mortar. When one roof collapsed, the one below it collapsed, and then the one below that. It was like a domino effect,” an eyewitness told Minute Mirror.
> “Three roofs of the rear classrooms fell one after another – first, second, third. The front portion remained safe. The building was dilapidated,” a local resident who joined rescue said.
*Narrow Streets, Self-Help Rescue:*
> “Due to narrow streets, rescue machinery could not reach the site. On self-help basis, parents and locals removed debris with Rescue 1122,” Rescue 1122 official said.
> “We removed mud and debris with our hands. Our children were buried under heavy mud roofs,” a parent of a deceased child said.
*Casualties Confirmed:*
> “17 bodies have been shifted to hospitals including 16 children around 13 years and one female teacher. 25 children are critically injured. We were 12 teachers, 4 of us are injured,” an injured teacher told Minute Mirror.
Hospital sources confirmed emergency has been imposed in all major hospitals of Peshawar – LRH, KTH, HMC – where injured have been shifted.
*Background:* For the past one week, intermittent rains continued at night, weakening the mud-made dilapidated roofs.
SP City Peshawar is on site and investigation into the dilapidated mud-structure has been started.
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