KARACHI: Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon on Sunday repeatedly dispelled the impression that any negligence was shown in handling the timber market fire.

Taking exception to comments made by party leaders of MQM, he said the provincial government had immediately responded to the incident reported last night.

“There was absolutely no negligence on our part...the whole provincial govt machinery was engaged in extinguishing the timber market fire,” said Sharjeel Memon.

He said the fire outbreak was reported to the nearby fire station at 1:20 a.m and two fire tenders were immediately dispatched to the site, consequently a total of 28 fire engines were engaged in extinguishing the inferno.

“This was tough as cotton and timber godowns had caught fire, yet by 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning our firefighters managed to douse it down,” said Memon.

Read also: Blaze in Karachi timber market controlled

"Extinguishing fire that had caught cotton and wood was no easy task and it must also be of no surprise that the fire was soon declared third degree, that is, extremely intense," reiterated the minister.

Memon said it was due to the timely action on part of the administration that no human loss was registered, despite the fact that there was a strong presence of people living in the closely located residential area.

“Our administrative machinery was immediately activated...the KMC administrator remained there till 3:00 a.m while Sindh Minister, Javed Nagori reached there at five in the morning,” he said.

The minister said that there is always room for improvement and things could have definitely been handled better had there not been the issue of “ghost employees,” with KWSB.

“We have managed to get rid of the menace in KMC and health department and are on our way to cleanse KWSB of this (ghost) hazard very soon,” he said.

In reply to another question he said the Sindh government had allocated Rs 3.25 billion for purchase of additional fire engines for Karachi.