Five-storey structure tilts, adjacent houses also evacuated

A ground-plus-four-storey residential building in Liaquatabad’s Angara Block 2 area was evacuated after it began to tilt in the early hours of Sunday.

Three floors of the building were inhabited. As the Sindh Building Control Authority’s (SBCA) dangerous building committee came to know about it being tilted, it monitored the structure and declared it hazardous after which the authority, district administration and police helped its residents vacate it.

Talking to The News, the dangerous buildings director of the SBCA, Beenish Shabbir, said it was a newly constructed ground-plus-four-storey residential building over an 80-square-yard plot. The residents, he said, had also shifted there recently.

He explained that as the residents inhabited the structure, firstly one of the houses adjacent to the building developed cracks, after which residents of that house lodged a complaint with the SBCA and also highlighted the issue on the media.

Later, the five-storey structure itself started developing cracks. As many as three houses have been vacated in the vicinity, according to Shabbir. The demolition process, he said, could take some time due to Ramazan. The Liaquatabad Town assistant commissioner said he would lodge an FIR against the builder.

In the meantime, the building control authority took action against another illegal construction in Liaquatabad No 2 where the fifth floor was being constructed over an 80-square-yard plot. On the directions of the SBCA, the builder and labourers working at the building were arrested.