KARACHI: The huge fire that erupted in an ‘illegally’ built warehouse in the basement of a superstore at Jail Chowrangi on Wednesday morning was ‘finally’ controlled on Saturday evening, said officials.

“Fire has been controlled completely,” Assistant Commissioner-Ferozabad Asma Batol told Dawn. She added that the cooling work continued.

She said firefighters had entered the basement and were involved in the cooling process, though light smoke was still emanating from there. She said the Chase store was completely destroyed while the mezzanine and ground floors were adversely affected.

She said 12 cars and 38 motorbikes were safely removed from two parking floors while some vehicles were still there, but they did not suffer damage. She admitted that the fire had again erupted at midnight on Friday.

Displaced flat owners demand proper assessment of structure before declaring it dangerous

However, they broke the wall of the basement behind the store near a bungalow of a private varsity for firefighting.

She said a team of SBCA would inspect the building and decide whether it was livable or not.

Residents’ woes

A visit to the spot in the evening showed that residents of the building were still present in a tent set up under the Jail Chowrangi flyover where women were also present while DHO-East and PDMA had arranged a first aid camp.

Office-bearer of the building’s union Nadeem while talking to Dawn showed a ‘trolley made of aluminium’ which had not melted and wondered as to how the iron rods used in the building construction had been melted in the fire.

He demanded a proper assessment of the building structure before possibly declaring it dangerous.

He said apart from proper assessment, the residents also demanded compensation. He said there were 173 flats and each flat was worth between Rs30m to Rs40.5 million having two or three bedrooms while there were four penthouses of Rs60 million each.

In case of declaring the building dangerous, estimated loss would be between Rs7 billion to Rs8 billion.

Besides an electric panel worth Rs2m and reception/admn office worth Rs1.5 million were also burnt while five lifts had also been adversely damaged.

Moreover, the affected residents were living in rented places and did not know for how long they would have to live there, he said.

Inspection ordered

Karachi Commissioner Mohammed Iqbal Memon has ordered the authorities concerned to carry out an inspection of all shopping malls / commercial and high-rise buildings.

He directed the Sindh Building Control Authority, Civil Defence, all deputy commissioners and cantonment boards “to immediately commence inspection of the buildings where stores, restaurants, etc, are being operated that may have warehouses in violation of approved building plans”.

KU student’s death

Fire department officer Abdul Ahad said on the first day of the fire, they were controlling the fire when after two-three hours they were informed that one employee of the store, Wasay Siddiqi, a student of the KU, was inside the building.

He said Wasay Siddiqi had remained in touch with the store colleagues through his cell phone.

One store employee accompanied him when they went on the first floor after breaking its wall but he (the Chase employee) did not point exact location of the victim.

They searched the place three times and at fourth attempt they found the young man lying unconscious there. “I started pushing his chest, he was alive but unconscious due to inhaling smoke,” said Mr Ahad.

They took him in snorkel and shifted him to hospital, but later on the news came about his death.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2022