Man miraculously survives after 50 hrs of Lahore factory collapse

LAHORE: The rescuers have miraculously retrieved a youngster from under the debris of a collapsed factory at the Sundar Industrial Estate near Lahore after passage of almost 50 hours of the incident.

The 18-year-old worker was identified as Shahid and rushed to Jinnah Hospital after being rescued on Friday evening.

According to the DCO Lahore, the teenager sustained injuries on his leg, adding that Shahid crawled out of the rubble on his own.

The DCO went on to say that 38 dead bodies of labourers have been recovered from under the rubble of the collapsed factory.

He expressed hope that more workers could be retrieved alive, therefore, the rubble was being cleared carefully.



Earlier in the day, two more labourers were recovered from under the rubble as the death toll from the tragedy rose to at least 35, officials said.

Rescue officials said over a hundred survivors had so far been pulled from the wreckage of the four-storeyed Rajput Polyester factory, which manufactured polythene shopping bags about 45 km south of the Punjab capital, and collapsed on Wednesday night.

35 bodies have now been recovered by rescue crews using heavy construction machinery and other tools to dig through the debris, rescue official said.

Efforts were still underway on the third day of the search and rescue operation, to clear the debris and look for any survivors or bodies of the victims.

No part of the four-storey building remained standing after the disaster, leaving dozens of workers trapped under the debris. It was unclear how many people were in the building when it collapsed or how many – dead or alive – may still be trapped.

Officials feared that between 35 to 40 persons may still be trapped under the wreckage of the factory.

Injured survivors said the factory's owner, who was adding a new floor to the building, had ignored advice from his contractor and pleas from his workers to stop construction after cracks in the walls following a powerful earthquake last week.

The quake of magnitude 7.5 killed more than 300 people in Pakistan and the northern parts of neighbouring Afghanistan and damaged thousands of buildings.