KARACHI: Eleven people were killed and five others injured when a huge fire, blamed on a short circuit, ripped thro­ugh a six-storey commercial building in Karachi’s Gulistan-i-Jauhar area in the early hours of Saturday morning.

According to officials, the deaths occurred beca­use the completely covered R.J. Shopping Mall on the main Rashid Minhas Road had no ventilation.

Doctors said all the victims had suffocated.

Rescue officials said that thick, lethal smoke inside the building caused difficulties for them, but they managed to rescue over 40 persons stranded in call centres and software houses in the plaza.

“A total of 11 bodies were bro­u­ght to three hospitals,” said police surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed, adding that five persons, including the one with burn wounds, were also brought for treatment.

Building has no smoke detector, fire alarm system and emergency exit

A post-mortem examination on the nine bodies showed that all of them died from suffocation with superficial burns on certain parts of their bodies. The bodies were blackened with smoke and soot particles were found in their noses, said the police surgeon.

Short circuit failure

KMC’s chief fire officer Ishtiaq Ahmed, while talking to media persons on the spot, said over 45 people were rescued. “The building is without any smoke detector, fire alarm system and emergency exit,” he said, adding they faced difficulties in getting inside as the building was filled with smoke.

Mr Ahmed said the fire began on the fourth floor due to short circuit, as per preliminary reports, which engulfed four other floors.

Syed Irfan Ali Bahadur, SSP East, in a report submitted to the Sindh IGP, said the fire erupted inside R.J. Shopping Mall at 6:20am “due to a short circuit from generator”.

Dr Abid Shaikh, the head of Sindh government’s 1122 rescue service, told Dawn that they received information about the fire at around 6:30am. Their rescue team and KMC’s firefighters responded within 15 minutes. He said 10 bodies were recovered from the building, while one person was rescued in a critical condition and shifted to a hospital, but he could not survive, bringing the death toll to 11.

He said there was a floor in the building where offices of software houses were located and people worked in night shift and most deaths probably occurred there. He said the fire spread up to the sixth floor, but the most affected floors were fourth and fifth.

Had there been an emergency exit in the building, the victims might have saved themselves as deaths mostly occurred because of suffocation, Dr Shaikh said.

Third such incident

Moving scenes were witnessed at the mortuary of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where the nine bodies were brought.

A man, who worked in the ill-fated plaza, told Dawn this was the third time fire broke out in the building during the last two years and all incidents took place on the fourth floor where over 250 offices were located, mostly call centres.

One fire official, who wished not to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media, told Dawn that two fire tenders were sent within 10 minutes of receiving information about the fire at 6:30am.

Later, seven more fire tenders, two snorkels and one KMC bowser — along with six private water tankers and two Pakistan Navy fire tenders — controlled the blaze around 1pm, but cooling work continued.

He said the building was completely covered as even the space reserved for balconies was turned into shops and offices. The fireman said false ceilings were made of thermopore sheets caused ‘lethal’ smoke, resulting in deaths. He said that even the door leading to the roof of the building was closed.

Sharea Faisal police SHO Raja Tariq Mehmood said the building houses shops, call centres and software houses.

CM orders safety audit

Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister retired Justice Maqbool Baqar ordered a safety audit of all commercial buildings, public spots and offices, saying fire eruption incidents were taking place because the inspection system had been abandoned in the city.

The CM directed the Sindh Building Control Authority, Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Civil Defence, and deputy commissioners/assistant commissioners concerned to carry out safety audits of all public and commercial buildings, educational institutions, and government offices and submit their report along with recommendations.

The CM also directed the Karachi commissioner to investigate the R.J. Shopping Mall fire.

Meanwhile, Mayor Karachi Barrister Murtaza Wahab said the commercial building where the fire incident took place was located within the jurisdiction of Cantonment Board.

Tahir Siddiqui also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2023