KARACHI: The death toll in the Keamari oil terminal fire rose to four as two more wounded persons died from burns during treatment at a hospital on Saturday, officials said.

Two persons — Shahid Mohammed, 24, and Salih Mohammed, 46, were burnt to death while three others — Fayaz Rafiq, 24, Shahid Husain, 45, and Mohammed Kashif, 32, suffered burns when a huge fire broke out at the oil terminal on Thursday. The wounded persons were admitted to the burns centre of Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital, where two of them, Fayaz and Kashif, died during treatment, said Jackson SHO Malik Adil Khan.

The police officer said that a case had been registered against the administration of Pakistan State Oil and a third party whose employees died in the incident on a complaint of Ahmed, a brother of one of the deceased persons, Salih. The FIR has been registered on charges of manslaughter, negligence and injuries. The SHO said that so far no one had been arrested.

The Karachi Port Trust on the day of the incident, quoting reports, said that the PSO staff was working on its fuel carrying lines on the Shell premises when the fire erupted. “Undertaking repair works in such a sensitive area is a specialised job and is supposed to be conducted under authorised experts,” said the KPT. It has hinted that the fire may be due to “some serious violation” of safety measures required to be adopted for such work.

The KPT had requested the commissioner of Karachi to hold an inquiry to establish the cause of the incident. Subsequently, Commissioner Sohail Rajput appointed an additional commissioner-1 to conduct an inquiry to ascertain the causes of the fire and fix responsibility.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2020