KARACHI, April 20: As the provincial authorities have announced investigations into the April 9 violence, the city government may find it hard to explain its fire department’s apathy in rescuing people who remained trapped for about four hours in Tahir Plaza, set ablaze by ‘miscreants’ and where unlike previous incidents the much-needed snorkel and rescue vehicle were not called in.

Queries put to the officials and sources, who gathered outside the plaza after the fire incident, brought to light some astonishing facts, which put a question mark over the fire department’s professional approach towards rescue operations.

“The snorkel was parked in the central fire station, which is less than a kilometre from Tahir Plaza,” said a source, who witnessed the incident. However, he said, “It is not known yet whether the snorkel was not called in by the officer who reached the spot or he was denied this support by the central fire station. But use of such a facility is obvious and a rule of thumb whenever a fire breaks out on the sixth floor of any building.”

Two women among six people were burnt to death in Tahir Plaza, a building near the City Courts, housing lawyers’ offices, on April 9 after a spat between two groups of lawyers, one of them backed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, turned deadly. The violence that spread to different parts of the city claimed nine lives. More than 50 vehicles were set on fire in a five-hour episode, following the brawl.

Witnesses said they believed that the incident was pre-planned, adding that the armed youths carried with them China-made padlocks and sacks of what appeared to be highly-flammable powder. They first targeted the third floor and then rushed to the sixth floor where they marked Room 616, the office of Advocate Altaf Abbasi.

When asked, fire department officials confirmed that the fire tenders reached the spot a little late due to security concerns amid non-stop firing. But then, they said, fire-fighters rushed to the third floor of the building without delay.

“A total of six fire tenders were used in the operation,” said another source, adding that 24 fire-fighters along with the tenders made all efforts to douse the fire. But, he said, one could imagine how difficult it was to operate from the ground floor to the third and sixth floors.

He said one of the officers on the site shouted several times for a snorkel support, but no one paid heed to the request.

“Most importantly, as per the SOP (standard operating procedure) fire-fighters are trained to move first for the rescue of trapped people. But in this particular case, the focus was not the human lives but the third floor where lawyers’ offices appeared to be the only loss,” said another source. “Despite the fact that one of the men inside the building cried that there were people trapped inside Mr Abbasi’s office on the sixth floor, fire-fighters were ordered to extinguish the fire on the third floor first.”

He said access to the sixth floor was not easy as the building was too dark from the inside with thick, black clouds of smoke. “A snorkel makes such operation much easier, as it provides a direct view of the affected area to fire-fighters and makes trapped people accessible to rescuers,” he added.

Acquired at a total cost of Rs110 million, two new snorkels were inducted into the city government fire brigade fleet in 2007. The snorkels are used to control fire and rescue people trapped in high-rise buildings. For the last few months, the facility has been brought into use in almost every incident of fire. From the Timber Market in Korangi to a lately erupted fire on the mezzanine floor of a building on I.I. Chundrigarh Road, the fire department has been efficient enough to bring the snorkel with other fire tenders for quick and accurate operations, which strangely was missing in the Tahir Plaza operations.

Rescue vehicle

The fire department did not even bring a rescue vehicle for the safe retrieval of the people, as the well-equipped facility remained parked with the snorkel at the central fire station.

“The rescue vehicle is always considered instrumental in these kinds of operations,” said a source.

“The vehicle is equipped with lights, a generator, first aid boxes and breathing apparatus besides every other instrument needed in such kind of operations. Unfortunately, this was not considered important in the Tahir Plaza incident.”