KARACHI, Jan 9: As the government announced investigations into Thursday’s midnight fire that swept through dozens of homes in a North Karachi shanty town claiming 40 lives (mainly children), experts have identified nearly 200 such itinerant settlements across the city with no civic infrastructure, vulnerable to similar incidents.

While there is no city government study enumerating the number of residential localities built purely with bamboo, straw and cartons, experts engaged in such activities feel it is not possible to ascertain the exact figures, but they would not be fewer than 200, ranging from 10 units to 100 in each town.

“They keep moving depending on their employment needs,” said Tasneem Ahmad Siddiqui, chairman of Saibaan, a non-governmental organisation providing shelter to the homeless. “One can’t exactly come up with the figures but through surveys for our own work, we can say that the number of such settlements would not be fewer than 200.”

He said the families residing in these shanties belong to the labour class, members of which prefer to live near their workplaces and keep changing their residences in line with their employment needs. With no immediate and easy solution in sight, the veteran social worker said the relief effort demanded planning and concentration from the authorities concerned to avoid such incidents in the future.

But until the time the government reaches any decision, officials fear these shanty towns remain at risk of similar incidents due to various reasons.

However, in the North Karachi incident, the fire officials are not sure about the cause of the massive blaze in the huts, erected over a 240-square-yard plot.

“Offhand we can say that since these settlements don’t have regulated or legitimate access to civic facilities, they use unconventional methods as alternates, which pose a danger,” said Ehteshamuddin, the city’s chief fire officer. “Similarly, in the winter, the winds are dry with low humidity and areas where such huts have been set up are at serious risk of fire.”

However, he was not ready to single out any of the conventional reasons behind the recent fire and said only proper investigations into the incident could lead to the actual cause of the blaze, which killed mostly children who were in deep sleep while their huts burned.

But the capability and expertise required for these kinds of investigations to achieve the desired results remains a tall order for the experts.

“Fire investigation is (based on) process and expertise,” said Tariq Moen, secretary of the Fire Protection Association of Pakistan. “In the first phase, it would definitely include interviews of the people affected, witnesses and pictures of the affected parts, but I don’t know how much these formalities have been met before initiating the process.”

He said following modern lines, one could reach the conclusion that either the fire was caused by an incident or was an act of arson for particular reasons. But here, he added, the fire investigations – largely based on speculation and estimates – most of the time never unearthed the actual reasons.

“There is a need to take experts on board to set up a dedicated platform for fire protection and an awareness campaign among the masses,” said Mr Moen. “And secondly, the defined rules must be implemented, which would definitely help curb such incidents.”

Apart from efforts to keep the city safe from such deadly incidents, the experts feel the need to plan the city in such a way which caters to the needs of every segment of society rather than facilitating the privileged class of the metropolis.

“Karachi is a low-density area in terms of population,” said Arif Hasan, a renowned architect and city planner. “There is still space available to provide shelters considering their needs and lifestyle.”

He doubted the efficacy of the proposed government plan to build low-cost housing facilities for low-income people in Bin Qasim area, recalling that in the past, flats in Lines Area provided to shelter-less people and labourers could not achieve the desired results due to ill-planning.

“The use of land must be designed (keeping in mind) environmental and social considerations and not value,” said Mr Hasan. “But unfortunately, in our city particularly land is being weighed on its value without considering the social and environmental impact. If this prevails, the trend may have some serious repercussions in the longer term.”