Karachi least safe in 60 major world cities

KARACHI: Karachi has been ranked the least safe of 60 major cities of the world in the Safe Cities Index 2017, said a report compiled by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

Karachi is at the bottom of the list of 60 major cities, while Tokyo topped the overall ranking, followed by Singapore and Osaka, occupying the second and third spots, respectively.

“Asia and the Middle East and Africa dominate the bottom of the index: Dhaka, Yangon, and Karachi are at the bottom of the list. Of the ten cities at the bottom of the overall index, three are in South-east Asia (Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, and Jakarta), two are in South Asia (Dhaka and Karachi) and two are in the Middle East and Africa (Cairo and Tehran),” said the EIU report.

“Although it [Karachi] performs poorly across all of the categories, it was dragged down by a very low level of personal security,” it said.

“This is a reflection of a number of factors, but the main reason is that among the cities in the index, it experiences by far the most frequent and most severe terrorist attacks. Jakarta, which ranked last in 2015, is 57th this year, pulled from the bottom by the addition of Karachi and other cities like Yangon and Dhaka.”

EIU report evaluates the relative safety of 60 cities around the world based on an index composed of 49 indicators split across four categories, including digital security, health security, infrastructure security and personal security.