14 Children Killed as Tutoring-Center Roof Collapses in Lahore; Owner and Contractor Arrested

Grief swept through a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Lahore this week after the roof of a tutoring center collapsed during class, killing 14 schoolchildren and injuring eight others in one of Pakistan's deadliest building failures of the year.

The collapse struck a private tuition center in the Kahna area of Lahore district on Tuesday, burying young students under concrete and debris as they sat for lessons. The victims were between roughly 4 and 12 years old. The eight injured children were taken to hospitals, where officials said they were in stable condition. Rescue workers spent hours pulling small bodies and survivors from the rubble as distraught families gathered at the scene.

Police have registered a criminal case against the owners of the tuition center and a contractor, and at least two people, including the building's owner, were arrested as investigators worked to determine responsibility. Early findings pointed to the possibility that an unfinished second-floor roof, part of ongoing construction on the aging structure, gave way because of poor building practices. Authorities said the investigation would examine whether negligence during that construction caused the disaster.

Funerals were held Wednesday as the community buried its children, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed sorrow over the tragedy. The sight of rows of small graves and inconsolable parents turned the collapse into a national moment of mourning, and it renewed anger over the safety of buildings where Pakistani families send their children to learn.

Building collapses are grimly common in Pakistan, where construction standards are often loosely enforced and structures are frequently built with substandard materials. Cost-cutting, unpermitted additions and the reuse of decaying buildings for schools, shops and homes have combined to produce repeated deadly failures in cities across the country. Advocates have long warned that weak oversight puts the most vulnerable — including children in informal schools and tuition centers — at particular risk.

The Kahna disaster is likely to intensify pressure on provincial authorities in Punjab to tighten inspections and hold builders accountable, though similar calls after past collapses have produced little lasting change. For the families in Lahore, those debates offer no comfort. They spent the week burying children who had gone to a neighborhood center to study, and who did not come home.

Rescuers and volunteers worked alongside emergency crews at the site, digging through slabs of broken concrete by hand and with heavy equipment as anxious relatives pressed against the cordon, searching faces for news of their children. Hospitals in the area treated the injured, several of whom were described as being in stable condition, while officials moved to identify the dead and notify families. The speed of the collapse — striking while a class was in session — left little time for the children inside to escape.

The case has also revived scrutiny of the informal tuition centers that operate in converted or under-construction buildings across Pakistan, often outside the reach of formal school-safety inspections. Parents rely on such centers to supplement their children's education, frequently unaware of the structural risks of the premises. As the FIR against the owner and contractor proceeds, victims' families and local officials have demanded accountability and stricter enforcement of building codes to ensure that a routine afternoon of study never again ends in a mass funeral.