Three die in Malir building collapse

KARACHI: They built a building some 20 years ago, which took only a few seconds to collapse. This tragedy struck 52-year-old Hassan Abbas Zaidi, his 45-year-old wife Zehra Bibi and three of their sons when their ground plus three-storeyed-building in Jafar-e- Tayar Society, Malir, collapsed on Monday morning, trapping them under the debris for hours.

The bodies of the head of the family, building owner, and his wife and one of their sons were recovered, however, another son remained trapped and the rescuers were trying to reach them.

Their youngest son was luckily recovered in school uniform but with critical injuries, The 12-year-old Shahzain was admitted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center where doctors were trying to save his life.

Four others injured were also reported to have been rescued. “After hectic efforts of more than 12 hours, the rescuers finally found a hand and head of one of the two trapped victims but it is a very delicate and sensitive job to retrieve him from the huge debris,” said Malir City SHO Shakir Hussain.

Hussain said only the owner's family was living in the building after he had let the other tenants leave due to construction work. Earlier, at around 7:30am, as the building collapsed, scores of people gathered and tried to rescue the victims trapped under the debris.

The people on their own managed to recover the building’s owner Hassan Abbas Zaidi from the debris and rushed him to a nearby hospital but died before reaching there. As the news spread in the city like a jungle fire, police, Rangers and volunteers from different welfare organisations joined the rescue work. DIG East Zone Amir Farooqui and Malir SSP

Irfan Bahadur oversaw the rescue operation. The KMC and PDMA reached the site with heavy machinery after almost two and a half hours. A team from the army's Corps of Engineers also helped in the rescue operation. After three hours of the accident, the rescuers were able to recover 12-year-old Shahzain, the son of building's owner. Later, the body of the wife of Hassan Abbas Zaidi The bodies were shifted to a morgue in Malir.

The owner, Zaidi worked for the income tax department and his wife was a government schoolteacher. The couple along with their three sons lived on the first floor of the building while two other families on the second and third floor had already shifted. According to neighbours, the building’s foundations had become weak and the owner had notified the tenants to leave on account of repairs. “The work had started a week ago,” said the neighbours. The Sindh governor and chief minister also directed the Karachi commissioner to reach the site to speed up the rescue efforts.