KARACHI, Sept 14: While bodies of 41 victims of the Baldia garment factory fire have been identified and handed over to their relatives, the Sindh health department collected seven more blood samples from unidentified victims’ relatives for the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis on Friday.

According to focal persons of three DNA sampling camps established by the Sindh health department for the identification of the fire victims, seven more relatives gave blood samples over the past 24 hours raising the number of the blood samples collected so far to 72 from 65 since Thursday morning.

Two blood samples were drawn at each of the three camps set up at the Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK), the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH) and the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) on Friday while a blood sample was collected at late night on Thursday.

The EDO health, Karachi, Dr Imdadullah Siddiqui, told Dawn that the CHK, the ASH and the JPMC had received in all 260 bodies of the industrial fire victims till Thursday afternoon, out of which 177 had been identified and handed over to their families and relatives.

However, 82 unidentified bodies were shifted to the Edhi cold storage by the police, while parts of a body were kept at the CHK mortuary.

He said that the number of blood samples collected at the three camps and confirmed by his office was 71 till Friday.

When contacted on Friday night, the station manager of the Edhi Sohrab Goth centre, Mohammad Mushtaq, said that 41 of the previously unidentified bodies had been identified and handed over to their relatives over the past 36 hours, while another 41 of the unidentified bodies and some parts of a body were kept at the Edhi cold storage.