KARACHI: Two persons were killed and five others injured after roofs of two shops collapsed due to the impact of a gas cylinder blast in the New Chali area near the office of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) on Tuesday, police and rescue services said.

DIG-South Syed Asad Raza said the blast occurred at around 11:30am in a generator shop.

Rescue-1122 official Hassaan Khan told Dawn that the gas cylinder exploded after a fire broke out in the generator shop when an employee was making tea.

The blast was so powerful that roofs of two shops collapsed and the debris fell on customers and employees.

The DIG said rescue officials and firefighters arrived at the scene and managed to control the blaze. They pulled out the dead and wounded from the rubble and shifted them to the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi.

The officials said that the rescue operation continued till late in the evening over suspicion that some persons were missing and might have been under the debris.

They, however, ruled out the possibility of any sabotage behind the incident.

The dead were identified as Zulfiqar Yusuf, 40, and Abdul Rauf.

The injured persons were identified as Rafi, 35, Nazeer Husain, 50, Isa Maqsood, 35, Aftab Saleem, 23, and Adnan Sarwar, 25.

Meanwhile, KCCI’s senior vice president Altaf Ghaffar said in a statement that the rescue operation was initiated ‘late’.

However, Hassaan Khan of Rescue-1122 said that they faced difficulties in reaching the area because of traffic jams. Besides, onlookers also created problems as they came out from their vehicles and started making videos with their mobile phones, he added.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2024