40 rescued after fire breaks out at multi-storey building

The city’s firefighters saved scores of lives on Monday as they rescued around 40 people after a fire broke out in a multi-storey building on II Chundrigar Road in the early morning.

The fire erupted in the fourth floor of the Techno City building and the tower was immediately evacuated as fire brigade vehicles reached the site. According to officials, a short circuit caused the fire on the fourth floor, which was a parking area. Smoke from the building could be seen from miles away.

“We responded after we received a call of smoke emitting from the building at around 5:30am,” said Chief Fire Officer (CFO) Tehseen Siddiqui. “We took the call seriously and dispatched our vehicles to douse the fire immediately.”

The 17-storey building has a number of offices, including the office of a local news channel and a radio station. Hundreds of people work at the building, however, luckily, the fire broke out in the early morning and staff there was limited at the time. Those who were in the building were quickly evacuated.

“There was smoke everywhere. I could not even see myself,” said Ehtisham Khan who got stuck in the fire. “Thank God, the firefighters reacted at once or we could have lost our lives due to suffocation.”

The fire also engulfed a lower floor and it took firefighters around seven hours to control it. Fortunately, no casualty was reported as everyone in the building was evacuated on time, CFO Siddiqui said.

Because of the intensity of the fire, more fire brigade vehicles were eventually dispatched to the site. According to the fire brigade spokesperson, nine fire tenders with one snorkel and one fire tender from the Pakistan Navy helped put it out.

Mayor Wasim Akhtar and Minister for Local Governor Saeed Ghani also reached the site and oversaw the work. The leaders also admitted to the shortage of equipment available to the fire department of a city of over 20 million people.

“The fire brigade department needs modern fire-fighting equipment,” said Mayor Akhtar while talking to the media. He said that both the federal and provincial governments have been approached regarding the shortage of fire-fighting equipment but the matter was not taken seriously ever. “The windows of the building were sealed due to which smoke accumulated inside the rooms and hindered the rescue operation.”

The mayor added that the firefighters put their own lives at risk and rescued at least 40 people who were stuck in the building. He urged the business community to take precautionary measures to avoid such happenings in future. Stating that building rules were violated, the mayor questioned how the Sindh Building Control Authority had approved the layout of the building when it had no emergency exit or a way for smoke to escape.

LG minister Ghani said that the incidents of fires should not be used for political point-scoring. He said the Sindh government had asked the authorities to submit a thorough inquiry report and find out whether or not negligence on the part of any responsible civic agency had caused the fire incident.

According to Ghani, the Civil Defence department was under obligation to ensure the availability of fire-fighting equipment in every building and market in the city. This is not for the first time that a fire had broken out at the Techno City building, a similar incident had occurred in the past as well, he said. “An investigation would be conducted to ascertain the role of the Civil Defence department in the previous fires.”

The LG minister urged property buyers to make sure that fire-fighting equipment is available there before they purchase any building or warehouse. He also assured that the Sindh government would soon provide a 104-metre-long snorkel and three fire tenders to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation fire brigade to boost its capability to tackle fire-related emergencies.

An extra contingent of law-enforcement agencies, including the police and Rangers, also reached the site to deal with any untoward incident. Police officials said that the fire erupted accidently and they did not find any criminal element behind it, adding that a case would be registered if any criminal intent was found during investigation.