At least 27 pupils and a teacher were killed on Thursday after a roof collapsed at a school in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar, a hospital official said.

Asim Khan from Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital said that more than 30 people were also injured, with six believed to be in a critical condition.

A spokesman for the emergency rescue service in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said the schoolchildren, most younger than 13, were crushed and trapped after the roof gave way at the privately-run Al-Khair Education Center school.

"When the Rescue 1122 emergency response teams arrived at the scene, they found that one roof had collapsed on to another, causing the classroom below to be crushed and trapping children inside," spokesman Bilal Ahmad Faizi said.

"There are concerns that more children may still be trapped beneath the rubble," he said, adding that 16 ambulances, two disaster response vehicles and more than 60 personnel were deployed to the site.

"We have taken out ⁠at least 45 children," said district emergency ⁠officer Iftikhar Khan, adding ⁠that some more children were reported to be buried in the rubble.

Twenty injured and most of the dead were brought to the city's Lady ⁠Reading Hospital, its spokesperson, Mohammad Asim, said.

Resident Sher Ahmed said he blamed "substandard construction materials" for the tragedy and called for a probe.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed "deep sorrow and grief over the loss of precious lives".

President Asif Ali Zardari branded the roof collapse a "heartbreaking tragedy".

"In this hour of grief, the entire nation shares the sorrow of the affected families," he said in a statement. (AFP & Reuters)


Edited by Aaron Tam