Rescue teams have retrieved one body and controlled a fire that broke out at a residential building in Karachi’s Shah Faisal Colony Number 3 on Wednesday night, officials said.

According to Sindh Rescue 1122 spokesperson Hassaan Khan, the fire was brought under control due to Rescue 1122’s rapid response.

The cooling process has also begun, and Rescue 1122 officials have entered the building and are engaged in a search operation, he said.

The deceased who was pulled out from the building was a 55-year-old man, Khan said.

Those who sought refuge on the rooftop to escape the fire have also been rescued. Khan stated that a final search operation will be conducted once the cooling process is complete.

He noted that a total of five fire brigade vehicles were part of the rescue operation, and Rescue 1122’s Central Command and Control reached the site of the incident as soon as it received information about the fire.

The fire erupted in a shop dealing with oil, Khan added.

“It is difficult to douse the fire with water, the trained Rescue 1122 team is using foam,” Khan had said earlier.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Korangi Tawheed Rehman Memon also reached the site of the incident.

According to him, the fire was a result of a cigarette being thrown near a petrol shop.

“Action has been taken against illegal petrol connections in the past as well,” the SSP noted.

He further said that action against this particular petrol pump had been taken two months ago. “The petrol and oil worker took an order from the court,” he said.

According to SSP Memon, the deceased was identified as Sirajuddin.

He added that further investigation into the incident was under way.

Sindh CM orders crackdown on illegal petrol sellers

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has taken notice of the incident and issued directives to speed up the rescue operation.

He also directed the Karachi Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner Malir to reach the site of the incident immediately.

“Every effort should be made to move people to a safe space,” the CM said, according to a statement issued by CM House spokesperson Abdul Rasheed Channa.

“The safety of people’s lives and property should be ensured in all cases,” the CM was quoted as saying.

He also asked to be updated on each development.

“The main cause of the fire is said to be an illegal petrol pump,” the statement said. “Legal action should be taken against illegal petrol sellers.”

“A crackdown needs to be initiated wherever there are illegal, open petrol businesses like this,” the statement said.

No one has the right to play with the lives of people, the statement said.

CM Murad asked for a report as soon as the report is brought under control.

Frequent fire incidents

A huge fire that broke out in an industrial unit in the SITE area on the morning of August 16 was controlled after hour-long fire-fighting operation, rescuers said.

They said that no loss of life was reported. However, a fireman belonging to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) became unconscious during the rescue operation.

Earlier in July, hundreds of people were evacuated safely and no one was reported injured in a fire that erupted in the Pakistan Stock Exchange building off I.I. Chundrigar Road.

In November, 11 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. Doctors said all the victims had suffocated.

A few days after the incident, the city commissioner formed a high-powered committee to conduct the same audit of all commercial and government buildings across the city.

Also in November, city planners, engineers and experts of building plans at a symposium were sure that some 90 per cent of all structures in Karachi — residential, commercial and industrial — did not have fire prevention and firefighting system.

They also agreed that it was ‘a criminal negligence’ on the part of the regulatory bodies like Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) that put lives of millions of people in the metropolis at risk.

The experts referred to the data that more than 15,000 people lost their lives and suffered losses of over a trillion rupees every year due to fire accidents across the country which mainly occurred in urban areas where majority of residential, commercial and industrial structures were raised in violation of defined building rules.

Speaking at the symposium, Fawad Barry of Haseen Habib, a fire safety equipment and systems solution provider, said: “Apart from an estimated 15,000 deaths and over a trillion rupees financial losses across Pakistan, some 150,000 suffer burn wounds due to these fire incidents.”