Fourteen children died after the roof of a building near Lahore collapsed on top of them, officials say.<\/p>\n
The incident happened at a private tuition centre in the Kahna suburb of the Pakistani city.<\/p>\n
Young children under the age of 10 are among those to have been taken from the scene.<\/p>\n
Authorities launched an investigation into the collapse, and two people were taken into custody as part of the initial inquiry.<\/p>\n
Farooq Ahmed, a spokesman for the emergency service Rescue 1122, told the BBC they had received a call about the incident at 16:45 (12:45 BST).<\/p>\n
He said that the rescue operation had been completed within one hour, and most people recovered were between seven and 11 years old.<\/p>\n
Another five people are thought to be injured.<\/p>\n
A man who said his niece was among the victims told AFP the roof of the building had been \u201cin poor shape\u201d.<\/p>\n
Zaheer, 45, told the news agency that tiles on the roof had been undergoing repairs while the children studied.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly the roof collapsed on top of quite a few children,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey put a lot of weight on the roof and that\u2019s why this has happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another resident told the Associated Press: \u201cWe don\u2019t know whose home to visit first to offer condolences for the loss of their children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s prime minister expressed his condolences following the incident in a statement reported by AFP.<\/p>\n
In the message, attributed to his office, Shehbaz Sharif said he \u201cprayed for the speedy recovery of the injured and directed the authorities to provide them with every possible medical assistance\u201d.<\/p>\n
The chief minister of Punjab, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, called it a \u201cheartbreaking tragedy\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a message shared on X in English, she said that \u201cthe loss of 14 innocent lives is an immeasurable sorrow, and my heart goes out to the grieving families\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery individual found accountable will face the full force of the law,\u201d she added.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fourteen children died after the roof of a building near Lahore collapsed on top of them, officials say. The incident happened at a private tuition centre in the Kahna suburb of the Pakistani city. Young children under the age of 10 are among those to have been taken from the scene. Authorities launched an investigation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}