The concrete slab came down without warning. At least 14 children are dead, their bodies pulled from the rubble of a tuition centre in Pakistan’s Punjab province. The collapse happened in the city of Multan during evening classes, a time when the building would have been full of young students seeking extra lessons.
Sources on the ground confirm that rescue teams are still digging through the debris, searching for survivors. Local hospitals have declared a state of emergency, and families have gathered outside the collapsed structure, waiting for news that may never come. The death toll is expected to rise as more bodies are recovered.
This building, like so many in Pakistan’s overcrowded urban centres, was a time bomb. Unregulated construction, shoddy materials, and blatant disregard for safety codes are routine. The tuition centre operated in a residential building that had been illegally converted. Documents obtained by this reporter show that the property had been flagged for structural violations two years ago, but nothing was done.
Who authorised this? Who pocketed the bribes that kept the inspection reports buried? These are questions that will be asked in the coming days, but the answers will likely be lost in a haze of denials and scapegoating. The owner of the building has been taken into custody, but the real architects of this tragedy are the system of corruption that allows such deaths to become routine.
This is not an accident. It is a predictable outcome of a culture where profit trumps safety, where the lives of children are weighed against the cost of compliance. We have seen this before: the garment factory fires in Bangladesh, the school collapses in India. Now it is Pakistan’s turn to count the dead.
The government has announced an investigation, but investigations in this country rarely lead to accountability. The families who lost their children deserve more than promises. They deserve to know why their children had to die for someone to make a few extra rupees.
The rescue operation continues as I write this. The lights of the recovery vehicles cut through the dust, illuminating the faces of men carrying small bodies wrapped in white sheets. The sound of mothers wailing fills the night air.
This is a tragedy. It was also preventable.
