KARACHI: The death toll of the deadly fire at Karachi’s Gul Plaza reached 67 on Thursday as rescuers continued to comb through the wreckage of the gutted building.
Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed issued a list of 67 individuals, only seven of which had been identified. Earlier in the day, she had issued a list confirming the deaths of 50 people.
A separate statement issued by the Sindh health department spokesperson also said that the post-mortem examination of 67 bodies had been conducted.
The updated death toll comes a day after officials found the bodies of 30 people from a single shop on the mezzanine floor. The plaza, parts of which have collapsed due to the blaze, was a ground-plus-three-storey building with 1,200 shops spread over 8,000 square yards.
Rescue 1122 spokesperson Hassaanul Haseeb Khan told media that urban search and rescue teams were conducting a search operation with the help of a thermal imaging camera (TIC).
“Urban search and rescue teams are working at the incident site and using specialised tools and cutters,” he said. The official said that the camera detected heat up to 1,500°C. However, the temperature of the shopping mall was higher, affecting the remains of the victims, he regretted.
He said that officials had never experienced such an incident in recent memory, adding that cooling work had been ongoing for the past three days.
He said that the building’s structure was dilapidated, due to which authorities were exercising extreme caution during the search operation.
He said that there was no way inside the buildings due to which rescue workers cut through the walls, which triggered “vibrations”. Therefore, the work, which should have taken 10 to 20 minutes to finish, took between one and two hours.
He said that a team from the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) had also visited the plaza. According to the Rescue 1122 spokesperson, the SBCA informed them that the building would be demolished after the search operation was completed.
Sources familiar with the preliminary findings of the committee tasked with investigating the devastating fire told media that the blaze started from a shop selling artificial flowers on the ground floor due to the alleged negligence of the owner.
They said the shop owner had been traced and interviewed and he told investigators that his two minor sons were playing in the shop while he was away.
While playing, they lit a match and threw it into the shop without putting it out before leaving, the sources said. As a result, the shop caught fire due to the presence of combustible material, the sources added.
An official told media on the condition of anonymity that the shop owner’s account was also corroborated by other witnesses. He said that since it was an accident, the owner or his sons had not been detained.
Relatives criticise pace of rescue operation
Relatives of those still missing have criticised the slow operation at the three-storey plaza, where rescuers are scouring the wreckage for human remains.
Faraz Ali, whose father and 26-year-old brother were inside the mall, told AFP he wants “the bodies to be recovered and handed over to their rightful families”.
“That is all so that the families may receive something, some comfort, some peace. At least let us see them one last time, in whatever condition they are, so that we may say our final goodbye,” the 28-year-old said.
Some families also staged a protest outside Gul Plaza on Thursday, criticising the slow pace of the operation.
The protestors said that almost six days had passed but their children were still buried under the debris.
SBCA begins fire safety assessments
The SBCA, meanwhile, said it had initiated fire safety assessments in Karachi on the directives of Sindh Local Government Minister Nasir Hussain Shah.
A statement issued by SBCA Director General (DG) Muzammil Halepoto’s office said fire safety arrangements in 35 of the city’s buildings, including both residential and commercial ones, had been carried out.
It quoted Halepoto as saying that the “functionality of firefighting and emergency systems” was being assessed in the exercise and notices for corrective measures would be issued to the owners of buildings with faulty fire safety systems.
Halepoto further stated that fire safety notices had been issued for 266 buildings in Karachi, which also included those covered in a Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) survey. He recalled that the KMC had also issued directives to builders, building owners and unions in January 2024 to ensure fire safety.
The official warned that buildings lacking firefighting tools and safety measures within the given time would be sealed.
The SBCA DG asserted that fire safety assessments would continue in the city to ensure emergency preparedness.
Additional input from AFP
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