Fire at Landhi Export Processing Zone doused after nine-hour efforts

A category-three fire broke out at a cloth warehouse in the Export Processing Zone in Landhi during early Friday hours.

Reacting to the information, the fire brigade despatched two fire tenders to the fire site to douse the flames; however, as they were not enough, more fire tenders had to be sent.

According to the fire brigade spokesperson, the blaze broke out at a warehouse of a ground-plus-two-storey cloth factory built on two plots of 1,000 square yards each. The spokesperson said the fire was too intense and fire tenders from the Karachi Port Trust and Pakistan Navy were also called to help extinguish it.

The spokesperson added the two-storey building also collapsed due to the heat; however, no loss of life or injuries were fortunately reported in the incident. The fire erupted at around 3am on Friday and spread to a nearby cloth factory, the warehouse of which was also reduced to ashes.

The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board imposed an emergency at the water hydrant in Sherpao Colony to help the firefighters put out the fire. It took nine hours to complete the fire extinguishing operation.

Export Processing Zone’s spokesperson Malik Aziz told the media that the fire broke out at a warehouse of a cloth factory and it also caused damage to another cloth factory’s warehouse. He added that the fire spread quickly due to the fast wind.

Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s chief fire officer Mobin Ahmed said as the KMC’s fire tenders were already busy in the fire extinguishing work in two different locations including Uni Plaza and Lyari’s Jhatpat market, they had to seek help from the KPT and Pakistan Navy.

The fire caused losses worth millions of rupees. Further investigations are under way. Also, fire tenders were able to control a fire that erupted at Uni Plaza on II Chundrigar Road on the night between Thursday and Friday. A warehouse and a truck were also damaged after a fire broke out at Lyari’s Jhatpat Market that was extinguished by three fire tenders.