Fire at chemical factory kills 16 workers in Pakistan’s Karachi

Rescue workers retrieve a body from a burnt chemical factory, in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, Aug. 27, 2021. (AP)

• Local industrialists blamed the incident on the ‘mushroom growth’ of unorganized industrial units that take few precautionary measures
• According to official data, Karachi witnessed 2,000 fire incidents the last year, and 200 of them took place in various factories

KARACHI: Pakistani officials on Friday said at least sixteen workers were killed and three more feared dead when a fire broke out in a chemical factory located in the Korangi area of southern Karachi port city due to inadequate safety measures.
Karachi is Pakistan’s most densely populated city which is frequently described as the country’s commercial capital. While it makes significant contribution to the national economy, it has a fragile firefighting system and witnessed about 2,000 of similar incidents last year.
“At least sixteen dead bodies and two injured people were brought to Jinnah hospital,” Dr Saima Mushtaq, head of the emergency services at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC), told Arab News.
She added the injured were members of rescue teams.
A senior police superintendent, Shah Jehan Khan, said the factory’s attendance register showed that 19 workers were present at the facility when the fire erupted and engulfed the building.
“Sixteen dead bodies have so far been recovered and three other workers are also feared to be dead,” he told Arab News, adding that none of the workers was seen escaping the blaze and the “only [fire] exit toward the top was also locked.”
Speaking to the media, Murtaza Wahab, the administrator of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), said rescue teams had left to help the factory workers within a minute of the incident, though they faced hardship since there was no fire exit at the factory.
“The fire has been put out, but the exact extent of the damage can only be assessed after the cooling process is complete and building is properly searched,” he added.
Wahab said the police and fire department were investigating the incident and their findings would be shared with the media.
According to official data compiled by the city’s fire department, at least 2,000 similar incidents had been reported in Karachi last year and 200 of them had occurred in different factories.
The record also shows that 33 fire incidents had completely razed the buildings.
In one of the worst fire accidents in Pakistan’s history, flames ravaged a textile factory complex in Karachi in 2012, killing 258 workers who were trapped behind locked doors.
Patron-in-chief of Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (KATI) Mohammad Zubair Chhaya said that big industrial units were “religiously following the standard fire safety rules,” though he added the small ones were more vulnerable to such incidents since they were “unorganized, not properly regulated and present all over the city, including non-industrial areas.”
“We have seen a mushroom growth of cottage industry in the city,” he told Arab News. “Such small industrial units are usually installed on small pieces of land with no proper fire exits in case of emergency.”
He added that the chemical factory in Korangi was also among such unregulated units.
“The cottage industry is our economy's backbone and required for major industries and the country, but such units need to be organized and set up in clusters,” Chhaya said. “Lack of disaster management mechanism and the absence of a single authority in the city to deal with such incidents is also aggravating the situation.”