Fire erupts at Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab's office located in historic KMC building
KARACHI: A fire broke out in an air conditioner’s outer unit at Mayor Murtaza Wahab’s office on the first floor of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) building on Tuesday, officials said. South Deputy Inspector General Asad Raza told Dawn that it was a “minor fire”. The fire was brought under control after fire tenders were sent to the site, Rescue 1122 spokesperson Hassaanul Haseeb Khan…
A fire erupted at the office of Mayor Murtaza Wahab, situated on the first floor of the historic Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) building in Karachi on Tuesday, officials reported. Deputy Inspector General Asad Raza confirmed to Dawn that the fire was relatively minor. Rescue 1122 spokesperson Hassaanul Haseeb Khan stated that fire tenders were dispatched to the scene, which successfully brought the blaze under control.
No injuries were reported and the damage was limited to the air conditioner’s outer unit, according to Khan. He attributed the fire to a possible short circuit. Fires are a recurrent issue in Pakistan, often stemming from inadequate infrastructure, lax enforcement of safety regulations, and negligence. Many buildings in the country lack sufficient fire exits, alarms, and emergency protocols.
Additionally, faulty wiring and overloaded power systems exacerbate the risk of electrical short circuits. In Karachi alone, at least three individuals were injured by smoke inhalation after a significant fire broke out in a factory at the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) near Landhi Industrial Area on Monday. The fire destroyed half of the three-story building and caused extensive damage to neighboring factories.
Another major fire had already occurred at the Gul Plaza shopping mall on January 17, claiming at least 73 lives. The blaze took two days to extinguish and left over 1,100 shops in ruins. In early February, a large fire in a plastic factory at Landhi EPZ engulfed several nearby factories, taking 13 hours to bring under control. Days later, a fire at a high-rise building near Karachi’s Baloch Colony forced the evacuation of around 150 people.
On February 17, a fire broke out at a chemical factory in the SITE Industrial Area. In March, a blaze at the Imtiaz Superstore’s Zamzama branch was brought under control after hours of rescue efforts. In June, hundreds of people were evacuated as a fire erupted in the cold storage of a department store on Rashid Minhas Road in Federal B Area.
Written by urgent.news from Dawn - Pakistan's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
