July 16, 2007	Monday	Jamadi-us-Sani 30, 1428

LAHORE, July 15: Three labourers, two of them brothers, were killed while two others injured when the rundown roof of an open warehouse collapsed during downpour in Hanjarwal on Sunday morning.

Witnesses said some labourers were asleep in the open at their workplace ‘Friends Traders’ run by Muhammad Khalid on Multan Road. As showers began to fall, they said, the labourers came inside the godown whose weak roof collapsed around 6am.

Muhammad Ameen, 28, Haji Muhammad Shafee, 40, Muhammad Zahid, 30, Muhammad Ameer, 35, and Shahbaz, 17, got entrapped under the debris. Khalid, together with some area people, reached the spot and called out the police and rescuers for aid.

The Rescue-1122 and Edhi ambulances and a team of technicians took two hours in removing the victims from under the debris and they shifted them to Jinnah Hospital where brothers Ameen and Shafee, and another labourer, Zahid, were pronounced dead. Ameer and Shahbaz, also the brothers of the deceased, suffered injuries.

The four brothers, who hailed from Farooq Colony in Bahawalnagar’s Chunian tehsil, had come to Lahore to engage in labour on the request of Khalid.

A visit to the spot revealed that the roof was made of bamboos and wooden planks and was supported by only two pillars.

Muhammad Husain, an eyewitness to the accident, told Dawn that the roof had not adequate support. “There was an 18-foot space between the girders of the roof instead of five feet which is usually recommended,” he said.

Malik Imran, who owns the place and had rented it out to Khalid, said he was not responsible for the poor construction quality as the latter had to build the godown under an agreement.

“It is Khalid’s fault for he had built the roof with temporary arrangements and that caused the tragic incident,” he said.

He said he had given the godown on rent to Khalid to shift his business of sand, crushed stone and iron bars four months ago. —Staff Reporter