KARACHI: After a recent fire in an ‘illegally’ built warehouse in the basement of a superstore at Jail Chowrangi left the multi-storey building dangerous for living for residents, the threat of such incidents remains high as over 50 business centres and shopping malls in the city downtown have converted their basements originally built for parking into warehouses and stores.

The illegal conversion of these facilities on the one hand has made these structures vulnerable to serious incidents, and on the other, has created a traffic mess outside the buildings in the busiest district of the metropolis, officials and sources said on Saturday.

The situation emerges after the police authorities have decided to go for a fresh survey and in the process found out a report of a similar exercise, which was conducted in 2015.

The report, an official told Dawn, suggested that there were 27 shopping malls and business centres in Saddar and the adjoining neighbourhoods, where the parking facilities had gradually been vanished and the particular area of the building, which had been developed for car parking, had been rented to traders to use as warehouses.

Fresh survey planned to detect the violation causing traffic mess while posing threat

“Our next exercise is aimed at conducting a study to find out available spaces of car parks in the downtown as the traffic management has become a serious challenge amid parking of vehicles on main roads and many of them are parked on main thoroughfares in parallel rows,” said DIG-Traffic Ahmed Nawaz.

“The number of those building in a busy district stood at 27 in 2015. After seven years, we believe it would have gone close to 50 or more. This is alarming and creates so many problems and invites different kinds of mishaps.”

The planned exercise of the traffic authorities emerged a week after the Karachi commissioner had ordered the institutions concerned to carry out an inspection of all shopping malls, commercial and high-rise buildings in the city.

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

His directives came in the wake of the fire in the basement of the illegally built warehouse of a departmental store in Summaya Bridge View at Jail Chowrangi on Shaheed-i-Millat Road that took several days to put out.

A young student of Karachi University lost his life and three other people, including one firefighter, were injured in the fire besides 170 families have been displaced following the incident.

“The report of inspection by the institutions concerned in line with directive of the Karachi Commissioner is still awaited, but the fact is that there are dozens of such commercial buildings in the city, which have converted their parking areas into other business-related places. In Saddar and other areas of south district alone, you will find every second building in the same state. The situation doesn’t only create parking problem, but also poses a serious threat of any mishap,” said an official.

Most of the basements and underground areas are being used as warehouses.

Similarly, in many buildings the parking areas were built in upper floors, but those too had been replaced with warehouses, he added.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2022