RAWALPINDI A huge fire in the garrison city's biggest shopping markets turned it into rubble which broke out at around 3am, leaving at least four people dead and more than 60 others injured.

Four of the injured persons who attempted to save themselves from the raging fire by jumping on the road from the third floor of the city's famous Ghakhar plaza, suffered multiple injuries.

However, one of them later died on reaching hospital due to multiple bone fractures.

A fireman Sajjad Khurshid was killed after being trapped in the building collapse, the fire department said.

Among the injured victims, six were fire crew from Rescue 1122 and another one a police official.

The huge fire is believed to have been erupted in the building at around 3am in the ground floor of the building and shortly it engulfed the entire structure. However, investigation has been launched to ascertain the real cause of the fire. But the security officials ruled out the possibility of terrorist activity.

The blaze damaged the building structure, which was build in 1980s - apparently by violating building by-laws by a former Pakistan People's Party federal state minister Raja Shahid Zafar.

The building having no proper fire extinguishing system and emergency exits, contained hundreds of peddlers sell clothes, cosmetics, jewellery, and various kinds of commodities.

Clouds of thick black and grey smoke could be seen from far away.  Sirens blaring ambulances and fire fighters remained engaged for more than 16 hours in extinguishing the flames and shifting the victims to hospitals.

There were loud bangs going off, which could be electric generators because most of the shopkeepers in the building had been using electric generators during load shedding.

Dozens of fire fighters, from Cantonment, City, CDA, Taxila, POF Wah, Airforce and Bahria Town fought to tackle the major blaze which took hold at five-storey Ghaghar Plaza housing at least five hundred shops and a restaurant located at the roof-top of the building.

A large number of people gathered around the plaza as the fire fighting operation was going on. Some of the on-lookers were seen taking photographs of fire scenes on their mobile phones.

At one stage the police had to use sticks to push them back as major part of the building had collapsed and the remaining part was nearing fall down.

A few of the relatives and friends of those who they said were inside the building and giving no response on their mobile phones were seeing sobbing outside.

'Zeeshan had been calling me from inside and asking me to rescue him,' his helpless brother Naveed said.

A witness said 'I am watching it now and I think it is going to collapse because cracks have started appearing in the building. It is an inferno. There will be no market and shoppers now.'

Police placed cordons around the building and advised the people to avoid the area as fire fighters were struggling to control the inferno.

Shopkeepers on the Bank Road were forced to close their shops and leave the area and surrounding roads were closed which caused traffic chock.

 'When I saw the fire and clouds of smoke coming out of the shops, my first thoughts were for the livelihoods of the people who works there and runs their business,' a witness Asif Bashir said.

He said there were explosions and then the fire grew rapidly to a scale on such a point that the building would be impossible to save.

Nearly twelve hours after the fire broke out in the building and the fire crew was busy in controlling the inferno, more than half part of the huge structure collapsed with a big bang.

More than 25 people, mostly the fire crew from Rescue 1122 and private people including those who had been watching their shops burning were trapped in the rubble.

Shortly afterwards the heavy machinery was called to remove the debris and a full rescue operation stated.

Of the injured, sixteen were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital, 38 to Cantonment Hospital; two to Benazir Bhutto Shaheed hospital, one to Holy Family Hospital while three to the CMH.

Seven workers of the Rescue 1122 trapped in the building were rescued and shifted to hospirtal.

The dead were identified as Waqas Abbasi, Nadeem Kiani 18 whose body was charred and Mansoor Raja (a caretaker of the building).

An old time citizen said he had never seen such a huge fire and heavy loss of property in his life in the city.

Another citizen termed it as a 'great tragedy a heavy loss' and accused the civic authorities for negligence as there was no proper fire extinguishing system and emergency exits in the building.