Karachi: The two fires that gutted factories in Pakistan’s two largest cities killed more than 310 people, as calls grew to speed up poor industrial safety standards, officials said on Wednesday.
At least 280 people died at a garment factory in Karachi, in the worst blaze in decades to hit the city, just hours after 21 died at a shoe factory in Lahore.
Dozens were hurt in Karachi as they jumped out of windows from the four-storey building to escape the blaze that began on Tuesday evening in a bid to save their lives, as sobbing relatives of trapped workers scuffled with police overnight.
The inferno that sparked on Tuesday evening at a garment factory in Karachi kept wreaking havoc until Wednesday evening as the rescue workers recovered 246 bodies while still fearing there were more to recover.
Provincial health minister Sagheer Ahmad gave the death toll as 246, whereas the tally came to 290 according to three state-run hospitals.
The mortuaries of Jinnah Post Graduate Medical College, Civil Hospital and Abbasi Shaheed hospitals were full to capacity due to the unabated arrival of charred bodies from the garment factory that was almost eaten by the fire.
“The mortuaries are out of capacity now and very few bodies were recognised and taken away by their relatives,” Roshan Shaikh, commissioner of Karachi, told the media.
Authorities feared recovering more bodies as the huge basement of the weakening building was yet to be cleared by the relief and rescue workers.
A fire officer told Gulf News that water used for extinguishing the fire had pooled into the basement. It was hot and workers could not get into the basement.
Most of the bodies were beyond recognition and the authorities were preparing for DNA tests to establish their identities.
A debate was going on among the different authorities as to who was responsible for such an unprecedented industrial accident in the history of this the largest city of Pakistan, which has many industrial estates in almost all of its outskirts.
“It is horrible to know that the owner of the factory ordered their workers to first recover the raw material of the factory and locked down the gates,” Shaikh commented.
The media reported that some surviving workers revealed that the factory owner commanded the security staff to shift all the inventories before human evacuation.
The Site Association, a representative body of the industrialists, ruled out the possibility of this inhuman gesture.
“I know the owner in person and I don’t think he might have ordered such thing,” Irfan Motan, the chairman of the association said.
The police were carrying out raids to arrest the owner of Ali Enterprises.
Several committees were set up to investigate the calamity and are to would file their reports within three days.
Governor Ishratul Ibad announced three days of mourning in the province to offer condolences to the victims’ families. Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has also announced a three-day mourning period.
Pakistani Interior Minister Rahman Malik said he had ordered an inquiry into both fires, as officials said the factory in Karachi in particular had been flimsily built, lacked emergency exits and had developed cracks in the walls.
Noman Ahmad, from the NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, said few industries and businesses implement the law on safety and fire exits, finding it easy to avoid because of lack of effective monitoring.
“Most of our shopping centres and markets too have no safety mechanisms, which the authorities should review seriously, otherwise it could cause graver tragedies in future,” he said.
Mohammad Saleem, 32, who broke a leg after jumping out of the second floor, said he and his colleagues were hard at work late on Tuesday.
“It was terrible, suddenly the entire floor filled with fire and smoke and the heat was so intense that we rushed towards the windows, broke its steel grille and glass and jumped out,” Saleem told AFP.
“It was extremely painful. I saw many people jumping out of windows and crying in pain for help,” he said.
Around 150 employees were working at the time in one of the factory’s three round-the-clock shifts, Saleem said.
Officials said the cause of the fire was unknown but Rauf Seddiqi, the industry minister for the southern province of Sindh of which Karachi is the capital, said the owner was under investigation for negligence.
“We have ordered an inquiry into how the fire erupted and why proper emergency exits were not provided at the factory so that the workers could escape,” Seddiqi said.
In Lahore, flames also trapped dozens of workers in a shoe-making factory, killing 21 and injuring 14 others, local officials and medics said.
Tariq Zaman, a government official, blamed the blaze on a faulty generator.
— With inputs from AFP
