The roof of a shop collapsed as women gathered 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 during 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 programme, eligible families receive 13,000 rupees (RM182.40) in quarterly payments.
In 2023, at least 11 women and children were killed in a stampede at a Ramadan food and cash distribution centre in Karachi, after hundreds rushed to collect aid outside a factory. — AP
