A fire at a shopping mall in the Pakistani city of Karachi killed 11 people and left 35 injured. At least 60 people were inside the mall when the fire broke out on the fourth floor of the six-storey building in the southern port city.
“Our rescue workers have taken 11 dead bodies to hospitals so far,” said Shahid Hussain, a spokesman for the Chippa welfare organisation, which runs a rescue service, was quoted as saying by news agency AFP. Hussain said that 35 people were injured and out of those 35 at least seven of them were in serious condition.
“At least 40 people have been rescued,” he added.
Karachi health ministry spokesperson Shabbir Ali confirmed the death toll and number of injured persons while speaking to AFP and said that the fire was started by a generator short circuit.
The fire then quickly spread to engulf two floors of the building. In Pakistan buildings are often constructed by flouting safety laws and building codes and the enforcement of these rules are lax. Poor safety laws and building codes as well as lax enforcement has led to frequent fire-related accidents in Pakistan’s large buildings.
At least 250 labourers died at a garment factory in Baldia Town in 2012 when a fire engulfed the factory. The building had no fire escape.
Karachi’s planners and engineers earlier this week warned that buildings did not comply with safety standards. They said that they were sure some 90% of all structures in Karachi — residential, commercial and industrial — did not have fire prevention and firefighting systems.
They blamed regulatory bodies like the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) and accused them of “criminal negligence” claiming that they put lives of millions of people in Pakistan’s financial capital at risk.
Shopping mall fires have also been previously reported in Pakistan. A huge fire was reported last year at the Centaurus mall in Islamabad which engulfed at least 17 floors of the mall in flames. This was due to an electric short-circuiting at a restaurant located in the food court area of the mall.