Roof collapse at Pakistan welfare payment site kills at least 8 women

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — The roof of a shop collapsed as women in an eastern Pakistani village gathered Monday to collect government welfare payments, killing at least eight and injuring more than 50, police and rescue officials said.

The roof gave way under the weight of the crowd, after the shopkeeper asked some of more than 100 women to move onto the roof while others remained inside the shop, rescuer Ashiq Mahmood said.

The women in Rahim Yar Khan, a district in Punjab province, had gathered to collect financial assistance ahead of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

The Benazir Income Support Program, named after former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in a 2007 gun and bomb attack, provides cash assistance to millions of low-income families, many of them women. Under the program, eligible families receive 13,000 rupees (about $45) in quarterly payments.

Crowding and stampedes sometimes occur in Pakistan during Ramadan, when government agencies, charities and businesses distribute food and cash to poor families. In 2023, at least 11 women and children were killed in a stampede at a Ramadan food and cash distribution center in Karachi, after hundreds of people rushed to collect aid outside a factory.