Residents evacuated after cracks appear at multi-storey building in Karachi

KARACHI: The residents have left terrified after spotting huge cracks at the six-storey building in Karachi’s Liaquatabad area, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

The families have moved out of the cracking multi-storey building in Karachi’s Liaquatabad where six floors were constructed on 40-yard plots around 1.5 years ago. The locals told the media that the use of defective material by constructors led to the appearance of cracks in different sides of the building.

The affected families claimed that the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) had been informed earlier regarding the cracks besides submitting applications multiple to take notice. However, no action was taken by the concerned authority.

Following the media reports regarding the dangerous residential building, police said that the SBCA team has reached Liaquatabad and commenced a thorough inspection of the residential building. Police added that action will be taken in accordance with the report compiled by the SBCA officials.

SBCA District Central director and members of the technical department have inspected the building. The officials told the media that they have completed the inspection of the six-storey building and there was not collapse fears so far.

However, the SBCA officials admitted that cracks appeared at the structures of some houses located adjacent to the residential building that will be inspected by other teams on Wednesday morning. The officials added that it is illegal to construct the six-storey building on a 40-yard plot.

Earlier in July last year, a four-storey dilapidated building had collapsed in the Liaquatabad area of Karachi, however, no loss of life was reported after it was timely evacuated.

Police had said that the building was declared dilapidated and was evacuated before to avoid loss of human lives. The debris of the collapsed building had damaged two of its neighbouring residential structures.