KARACHI, March 31: The fire brigade department is facing an acute shortage of staff and necessary equipment, especially fire engines and snorkels, raising the risk of casualties in fire incidents.

The City District Government Karachi, in defiance of its promise, has not so far provided two snorkels to the fire brigade department, which was promised by City Nazim Mustafa Kamal in January this year following the incident of a huge fire erupted in a factory in SITE and resulted in the death of seven fire fighters.

After the incident, the nazim had announced that two new snorkels would be provided to the city fire brigade department during the first week of March.

Sources said the fire brigade department had only one snorkel, which was inducted in the fleet some 15 years ago. The snorkel had already passed its operational life and often remained out-of-order, sources said.

They said half of the 44 fire engines with the department were non-operational due to mechanical and technical faults best known to the authorities concerned.

These out-of-order fire engines were rusting out at Gulistan-i-Mustafa, Saddar and central fire stations, they said.

Besides, sources said, the fire department had shortage of proper equipment and skilled workforce to fight any eventuality.

Of 20 fire stations, 16 were operational while four centres including the Civic Centre fire station were lying closed for months, sources added.

They said the staff deputed at the closed fire stations was not transferred to any other station and as such they were drawing their salaries and overtimes regularly for the last several months without performing their duties.

With all these deficiencies, the fire fighters had been facing serious problems in fighting fire and many of them had lost their lives while citizens too are at risk.

According to a survey, Karachi has more than 10,000 five-floor plus high-rise buildings, but there is no proper mechanism to save lives of their inhabitants in case of fire.

A majority of high-rises had been constructed in violation of the relevant rules and regulations lacking arrangements to cope with any fire incident.—Online