At least 14 children were killed and about 20 injured when the roof of a tuition centre collapsed in the Kahna Nau area of Lahore, in eastern Pakistan, on Tuesday, police said. More than 30 children, most aged between 7 and 13, were in class when the structure gave way, according to local reports.
The centre was operating out of an under-construction building, and the roof of an unfinished upper floor collapsed, police said, citing poor construction quality and the use of TR girders in preliminary findings. Several of the injured were in critical condition, and a teacher was also hurt. Rescuers searched the rubble by hand for children who might still be trapped.
Authorities detained two people, including the building's owner and the contractor, as part of an initial investigation, the newspaper Dawn reported. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief over what he called “the loss of precious lives,” and the chief minister of Punjab province ordered a review of safety standards at educational buildings across the province.
A familiar disaster
The collapse follows a long pattern. Building failures are common in Pakistan, where safety codes are weakly enforced and substandard materials are widely used to cut costs. In 2025, a multi-storey building collapse in Karachi’s Lyari district killed more than two dozen people; authorities had previously identified hundreds of structures in that city as hazardous.
Why it keeps happening
Analysts and local reporting point less to an absence of rules than to the failure to enforce them. Building-approval processes that are meant to take about 60 days can stretch to 18 to 24 months, and combined with high financing costs, that delay makes building without permits “economically rational” for many developers, according to research cited by Pakistani outlets. Enforcement is further hampered by limited resources and, critics say, by corruption and a lack of political will to act against illegal construction.
What to watch
Punjab’s promised review of educational buildings will be an early test of whether Tuesday’s deaths prompt durable change. Past collapses have produced official inquiries; critics say they have rarely led to lasting improvements in enforcement. Whether the detained owner and contractor are charged, and whether officials move against other unsafe structures, will signal how far accountability extends this time.