Five dead in Liaquatabad building collapse

Five people, including a woman and a minor boy, were killed and nine others, including four women, injured after a four-storey building in Liaquatabad collapsed during the early hours of Tuesday.

The ill-fated structure caved in with a crash at 2am, when most of its residents were asleep. Following the collapse, clouds of dust enveloped the vicinity as people ran out of their houses to determine the source of the crash.

Initially, the locals themselves sorted through the rubble to pull out the trapped occupants, but rescue teams took over from them after arriving on the scene. The deceased and the injured were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

The deceased were identified as 13-year-old Ayan Faisal, his 30-year-old father Faisal Abidur Rehman and 25-year-old Abdul Wahab. A man and a woman in their early 40s remained unidentified until the filing of this report.

The injured were identified as 45-year-old Shahjahan Wajid Hussain, her 45-year-old husband Wajid Hussain, 35-year-old Nazeer Hussain, 35-year-old Safdar Ali, 25-year-old Ali Hashim, 30-year-old Akbar Sajid, 30-year-old Arshad Abdul Rasheed, 27-year-old Zain Wajid and his 25-year-old brother Shoaib Wajid.

On a visit to the site, The News found that the building was constructed on 80 square yards. It was famous in Liaquatabad by the name of Taal Wala Chowk.

On the ground floor of the building the owner ran his own restaurant, namely Waseem Sheermal House. There were shops on the front side, while a cement block depot and a paan shop on the right and left sides.

The owner rented out the first and second floors, while the third floor was in use by the owner’s sister and brother-in-law. The owner himself resided in another building situated a few yards away.

District Central Deputy Commissioner Capt (retd) Fariduddin Mustafa told The News that the rescue operation had come to an end, but the removal of debris would take more time.

Mustafa said the rescue teams had made sure that no one remained trapped under the wreckage. Justifying the slow pace of operation, he said the priority of the rescue teams was to pull out the trapped occupants. By noon the rescue teams pulled out all the trapped residents, following which they started removing the debris, he added. “The work is proceeding slowly because the collapsed structure has damaged the foundations of the nearby buildings.”

The DC said the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) was called in to inspect the condition of the surrounding buildings to conclude the rescue operation. After visiting the site, the SBCA team declared three buildings in the vicinity “dangerous” and announced that the structures would be demolished. The work to raze them would start on Wednesday (today).

The locals told The News that electricity and gas supplies were suspended in many parts of Liaquatabad Town since early Tuesday morning because of the rescue operation. The power cut also stopped the water pumps, which caused shortage of the commodity in the locality.

Following the collapse, a heavy contingent of law enforcers arrived on site and cordoned off the locality to facilitate the rescue workers. They also ordered closing all the shops to avoid any mishap during the rescue work.

The rescue operation was met with the usual difficulties, the chief among them being the gathering of a large number of people at the site of the incident.

A heavy contingent of Rangers was also present on site. The paramilitary force helped clear the area of people who were not part of the rescue operation or associated with the authorities.

Karachi Deputy Mayor Arshad Vohra also visited the site of the incident. He told the media that the building was in a dilapidated condition. Responding to a query relating to the late arrival of the necessary machinery on the site, he said the immediate use of heavy machinery could have caused more deaths.