Wake-up call for govt as unsafe building collapses in Kharadar

Karachi
A five-storey dilapidated building collapsed in the old city area of Kharadar on Wednesday, coming as a wake-up call for the Sindh government that has yet to take concrete action to get 288 unsafe buildings in Karachi vacated.
Luckily, no casualties occurred as the residents had already vacated the building.
The removal of the debris was under way under the supervision of officials of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) and Karachi administration, according to a statement issued by the authority.
On Monday, the SCBA said a list of potentially dangerous structures had been compiled by the Technical Committee for Dangerous Buildings on the directives of authority’s acting director general, Mumtaz Haider.
The committee comprises senior architects and engineers, who made their decision after a survey of all potentially dangerous structures.
The SCBA told the residents and shopkeepers living or working in the dilapidated buildings to vacate as soon as possible in light of the high risk of collapse during the ongoing monsoon season.

Minister makes appeal
The newly appointed local government minister appealed to the occupants of all dilapidated buildings in the city to immediately vacate even if they had not received a notice from the SBCA, our correspondent added.
Syed Nasir Hussain Shah made this appeal as he visited the site of the collapsed building in Kharadar. He met the affected people and assured them of support.
He said the SBCA had issued vacation notices to the dwellers of over 90 buildings in the metropolis.
“In case any building in a dilapidated state has not been issued with such a notice, its residents are appealed to immediately vacate it in order to avoid loss of life.”
Shah said the government had established camps in several schools, including one in NJV Government School on MA Jinnah Road, to provide temporary shelter and other necessary civic facilities to people vacating unsafe buildings.
He said a survey would be conducted to detect all unauthorised buildings in the city and also to take stern action against officials of the civic agencies who had connived in such illegal building activities on a brazen basis.
The minster announced that the government would try to provide financial compensation to people vacating unsafe buildings and he would talk to PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in this regard.
He told the local government secretary and the District South administrator to present a report to him at the earliest about the accounts of financial and material losses to the residents of the fallen building in Kharadar.
He said that on the identification of residents of old city areas, more such buildings in a highly dilapidated state would be demolished in time in order to avoid any untoward situation. Shah constituted a committee under his secretary and having representatives of the PPP District South for the payment of compensation to the dwellers of the collapsed building.