Karachi mall sealed after fire kills 11 people

KARACHI: The Karachi administration has sealed the shopping mall on Rashid Minhas Road after a fire broke out that killed 11 people, ARY News reported.

Eleven people were killed and five others injured when a huge fire ripped through a six-storey building in Karachi’s Gulistan-i-Jauhar area in the early hours of Saturday morning.

According to officials, the deaths occurred because the Shopping Mall had no ventilation.

A post-mortem examination on the nine bodies showed that all of them died from suffocation.

According to rescue officials, the fire that broke out at around 6:30 am engulfed the fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the shopping mall.

Meanwhile, Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister retired Justice Maqbool Baqar ordered a safety audit of all commercial buildings, public spots and offices, saying fire eruption incidents were taking place because the inspection system had been abandoned in the city.

The CM directed the Sindh Building Control Authority, Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Civil Defence, and deputy commissioners/assistant commissioners concerned to carry out safety audits of all public and commercial buildings, educational institutions, and government offices and submit their report along with recommendations.

Karachi, the country’s economic hub with a population of 20.3 million, is home to a vast network of factories and towering high-rises, but the city’s firefighting infrastructure is inadequate to deal with its frequent fires. This past week, urban planners and engineers at a symposium said that about 90 percent of all structures in Karachi — residential, commercial and industrial — lacked fire prevention and firefighting systems.