On Thursday, 15 October, in Peshawar, a roof fell on a classroom. Al-Khair, a private school, Afridi Abad. The children were in lessons. Rescue 1122: one roof fell onto another, the classroom below was crushed. The tallies do not match. Dawn, after the Lady Reading Hospital list: 30 pupils and a female teacher. AP: 34 children and a teacher. BBC: at least 33 pupils and a teacher. Ages, in the hospital’s account: between seven and 14. More than 50 injured, in AP. 61 people brought to LRH, 30 discharged after treatment, in Dawn. Anyone who picks a single number before the inquiry turns a hospital into a verdict.

CCPO Dr Mian Saeed Ahmed, quoted by AFP: the structure, weak. The roof, overweight with construction. That is a police reading. It is not a court finding. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor, Faisal Karim Kundi, asked for a report, asked who issued the no-objection certificate, announced an inquiry. The school owner, arrested, the governor told the prime minister. Arrest is not conviction. The name, in the texts consulted, is not given as a sentence. Compensation announced: one million rupees to the families, 200,000 to the injured. A promise, not a payment verified here.

AP: the authorities ordered inspections of private schools in the province. Some relatives said the structure had already been flagged as weak. That is the accusation afterwards. The NYT put the question on regulation. The question holds if the NOC exists and who signed it. It holds if the inspections start. It does not hold if a roof is already down.

Samiullah, a parent, to Dawn: he arrived around 9, pulled out three girls under eight. His son, on the ground floor, had left for water. Sohail, to AFP: his niece escaped and told the house. At the scene, children trapped to the neck, pulled out by neighbours. That is the morning. It is not the regulation.

The private school, morning, a full room. The roof, heavy. The certificate, to be found. Between them, a list of children the hospital corrects twice in the same day.

Until the report Kundi asked for, the roof and the arrest remain. After the report, what remains is whether the regulation was on paper or on the beam.

Image: Adnanyousafkhalil, Islamia College, Peshawar, July 2014, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The photograph is of the historic college, not Al-Khair School in Afridi Abad.

Sources consulted: Teacher, 30 students killed in Peshawar school roof collapse — Dawn; Roof collapse at Peshawar private school kills 34 children and a teacher — AP.