KARACHI: A stampede killed up to 20 impoverished women and children, crushed in a stairwell and alley, when charity workers handed out free flour Monday in Pakistan’s financial capital Karachi.

Dozens of women and girls from poor families converged on the first-floor office of a small charity in the crowded neighborhood of Khori Garden in the hot Ramadan afternoon. “We have so far received 20 bodies of women and girls while the injured are more than 30,” Amin Khan, an official at Civil Hospital Karachi, said.

City police chief Wasim Ahmed said at least 18 women and children died in the stampede with dozens of others injured.

“The deaths were caused by suffocation and the stampede in one of the most congested localities of Khori Garden, where a charity was distributing free flour among hundreds of women and children during Ramadan,” he added.

Women clad in black burkas sobbed and wailed as ambulances screeched through the streets, ferrying the bodies and injured to hospital, where panicked relatives searched for their loved ones and dead bodies lay covered in sheets.

“I have lost my little daughter,” cried Karima in hospital. “I wanted a bag of flour for my family and my greed punished me so gravely,” she sobbed. A private security guard responsible for making sure the women formed an orderly queue baton charged the women when they became impatient with the long wait, said police and witnesses.

“The women got scared and tried to save themselves... which caused the stampede,” said local police official Hashmat Ali.

Injured Salma Qadir, 40, said the women wanted to get their rations quickly but were beaten by a guard.

One witness said people tumbled over each other when the lights on the stairs went off because of a power cut. “As we were climbing up the stairs the power went off. I also fainted,” Seema Bibi, 13, said as she searched for relatives among the crowd.

Several dozen women’s shoes, sandals and slippers were left lying on the road outside the distribution place in Khori Garden. “Fortunately, my mother and sister have survived and I am searching for their shoes and scarves here,” said teenager Mohammad Kashif.

Shops in the area closed as a sign of mourning after the tragedy as women and children wailed outside the crowded emergency ward of the Civil Hospital Karachi where bodies and the injured were transported.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered an immediate investigation into the incident and medical treatment for the injured.