Pakistan tutoring centre roof collapses, killing 14 children: officials

The roof of a tutoring centre collapsed, killing at least 14 children and injuring five in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Tuesday, an ambulance service and police said.

"A roof collapse in Basti Eid Gah, Kahna Nau, has claimed the lives of 14 children, while five others were injured," an Edhi ambulance service spokesperson said, referring to an area to the south of Pakistan's second-largest city, reports AFP.

Two people had been taken into custody over the disaster, provincial police posted on X, adding that rescue efforts at the tutoring centre were underway.

The provincial health minister confirmed the death toll to local broadcasters.

The injured children were receiving treatment in hospital, according to Edhi.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued a statement, expressing "grief over the loss of precious lives in the collapse of a tuition centre roof in Lahore's Kahna area".

Roof and building collapses are common across Pakistan, mainly because of poor safety standards and shoddy construction materials in the South Asian country of more than 240 million people.

Last July, 27 people were killed and 10 injured when a five-storey building collapsed in the impoverished area of Lyari in the southern city of Karachi.