The rescue teams took more bodies from the rubble of a collapse of the five -story building in Karachi during the night, making the toll on Saturday at 16 as the recovery operation continued for the second day,
The five -story building on the Fida Husain Shaikha road in the Lea market had already been declared uninhabitable by the authorities due to its ruins structure, which was further weakened by recent rains, said the Deputy General Inspector (DIG) South Syed Asad Raza.
According to the data of the Trauma Institute (SMBBIT) of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto at the Karachi Civil Hospital, seen by Dawn.com15 bodies were brought to the hospital while a person died during treatment.
The police surgeon, Dr. Sumaiya Syed, said there were nine people injured since yesterday, of which six had been discharged and one had serious injuries.
“The rescue operation is still underway in Baghdadi, Lyari, where the building had collapsed on Friday,” said Dig Raza. Dawn.com.
The ceiling and construction collapses are common throughout Pakistan, mainly due to poor safety standards and the use of poor quality construction materials.
Karachi, home of more than 20 million, is especially known for poor construction, illegal extensions, aging infrastructure, overcrowding and lax application of building regulations.
There were contradictory reports of the death toll, with the 1122 rescue that indicated it as 16 and Dig Raza saying that a body 17 was recovered from the rubble.
“On the one hand, the rubble have been removed to the ground floor, while on the other hand, the rescue team has eliminated the rubble to the third floor,” added the police officer.
The deceased included nine men, six women and a child, according to a declaration of rescue 1122. His bodies had been taken to the Karachi Civil Hospital (CHK).
“My daughter is under the rubble,” said Dev Raj, 54 years old AFP In the scene.
“It was my beloved daughter. It was very sensitive but is under the burden of rubble. He married only six months ago.”
The rescue teams worked throughout the night, and the families said it was still believed that at least eight people were trapped as temperatures rose to 33 degrees Celsius in the morning.
Abid Jaluddin Shaikh, leading the 1122 rescue efforts on the scene, he said AFP that the operation continued during the night “without interruption.” “It can take eight to 12 hours more to complete,” he said today.
Up to 100 people had been living in the building, said Superior Police officer Arif Aziz AFP.
The incident occurred days after a portion of a building collapsed in the city’s Kharadar area. However, no victims or injuries were reported.
The Public Accounts Committee of the Sindh Assembly had ordered the provincial government in December to take urgent measures to evacuate more than 570 buildings declared “dangerous” by the Karachi authorities.
The Control Authority of Sindh (SBCA) said he had declared that the plot is dangerous through its technical committee for dangerous buildings after an exhaustive inspection made in October 2022.
The authority said he had issued three expulsion notices to residents since then, as well as K-Electric, Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and Karachi Water and Sewerage (KWSB) that will disconnect public services services.
But Imran Khashheli, owner and resident who saw the rescue operation on Saturday, denied having received notices.
“Do you think we are out of our senses to stay in an insecure building with our families?” He said, speaking with AFP. He said he had seen cracks on the pillars of the early building on Friday morning.
“I called all the doors and asked the families to leave immediately,” Khaskheli said, adding that around 40 families lived in the building, but that many did not pay attention to their warning.
More than 50 buildings in the district have been declared insecure, with six evacuated since yesterday, said Karachi’s deputy commissioner (South) Javed Nabi Khoso. AFP.
‘Hindrance’ in rescue efforts
Rescue spokesman 1122, Hassaanul Haseb Khan, said the incident had occurred between 9 am and 9:30 am, however, they said they received late information due to the suspension of communication networks, he added.
Mobile services are generally suspended in certain areas due to security problems during Muharram.
Sindh Rescue 1122 General Director (DG) ABID Jaluddin Shaikh, in a statement, said yesterday that there were obstacles during the rescue operation due to the “rebel crowd, several road blockages and mobile networks [issues]”
Heavy machinery faced difficulty to reach the site in the middle of the narrow alleyways of Lyari, a low -income neighborhood.
The police even had to load a crowd that had gathered around the site to give way to the machinery, the authorities added.
Sindh’s prime minister Murad Ali Shah looked for a report on the collapse and details of the SBCA ruins.
The local government minister of Sindh, Saeed Ghani, said that a high -level committee has formed that will submit a report on the incident on Monday. He regretted that residents did not evacuate the building despite receiving notices.
The minister also ordered the suspension of related officials in the SBCA.
‘The Sindh government responds during the last 17 years’
The opposition leader of the Sindh Assembly and the MPA of Muttahida Qaumi, MPA Ali Khurshidi, blamed the Sindh government for the administrative collapse of Karachi and the tragedy of the Lyari building.
“Call the oil mafia and get water in 30 minutes,” he said during a press conference, pointing out unbridled corruption and institutional failure in civic bodies.
Khurshidi said that if the provincial administration was the fault and was considered responsible if he had not approved laws in 17 years to make this a criminal offense.
“Instead of saying ‘this should be done,’ you should admit ‘, we should have done this, but we can’t'”.
Directing President Asif Ali Zardari and the president of the PPP, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, said: “This is a matter of its credibility and credibility of his party.”
He said that the suspensions of the officials would not work, insisting that the termination and legal consequences were necessary. He condemned the “harassment” of the Karachiitas through the extortion of the Traffic Police, pleading the urgent administrative reform, saying that the public was fed up.
“It is not a specific score policy,” Khurshidi said. “We are doing politics so that we can solve genuine problems that people face.” He concluded asking President Zardari and Bilawal to stop issuing simple convictions and, instead, fix the broken system under the governance of his party.
Collapse of previous mortal buildings
In April, a 10 -year -old girl died when a three -story building in the Bhains colony suddenly collapsed, while a man and a woman were taken alive from the rubble.
In October 2023, five people died and four others were injured when a subsidized construction building collapsed in the Shah Faisal neighborhood.
The city witnessed two of these incidents within 72 hours in September 2020, claiming the lives of at least three people and wounding more than a dozen.
Lyari also faced a similar incident in June 2020, when 22 people were killed after a five -story residential building that houses about 40 apartments collapsed.
A collapse of the building in the Karachi Gulbahar area in March 2020 killed 27 people. A similar incident of 2011 in the Musa Lane neighborhood of Lyari took 33 lives.
