KARACHI: The provincial administration of Sindh on Thursday decided to implement COVID-19 restrictions across the province more strongly as health authorities warned that Karachi alone had recorded a positivity ratio of 14.32 percent.
The decision was announced at a time when hundreds of thousands of residents in the seaside metropolis thronged markets on Thursday afternoon due to limited shopping hours, causing extreme traffic congestion.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah decided to close all shops, including grocery stores, after 6 p.m. while chairing a meeting of a COVID-19 taskforce. He also announced that restaurants would not be allowed to offer takeaway facility after iftar during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
“We will further tighten the enforcement of standard operating procedures after Sunday by closing Hawksbay, Sea View and other such recreational facilities for visitors,” he was quoted in an official handout circulated by the CM House.
The meeting was told that new coronavirus infections were on the rise in Karachi where the positivity ratio stood at 14.32 percent “which was quite dangerous.”
It was also pointed out that COVID-19 cases were on a decline in Hyderabad, another city of the province, where new coronavirus cases had declined to 11.92 percent on Wednesday from 20 percent on 29th April.
According to the provincial administration, authorities had tried to implement health safety precautions by imposing a fine on 627 people in Karachi on May 5. The district administration of the city also sealed 64 shops, arrested seven people and warned 369 others.
“People do not understand the situation,” the chief minister told the meeting. “One should only leave one’s residence for valid reasons after taking necessary precautions these days.”
The participants of the meeting urged the chief minister to talk to the federal government to ban passenger train services during Eid holidays to further prevent the spread of the virus.
Provincial health minister Dr. Azra Fazal Pechuho told the meeting that authorities in Sindh had revived quarantine facilities at local hotels and enhanced virus testing. She added that import of small-scale oxygen generation plants was also in progress.
Meanwhile, traders in Karachi expressed their disappointment at the provincial administration’s decision, accusing the health authorities of aggravating the situation by limiting the number of shopping hours that crowded the markets.
“If the markets are following their usual routine, it doesn’t lead to congestion and it is also easier for us to deal with people,” Shafiq Ahmed, a shop owner at Tariq Road, told Arab News. “Now the whole city is here to shop, and you can look at the situation.”
Agreeing with the traders, Sobia Shah, a costumer, said she would have done her shopping somewhere at night in normal situation.
“Now everyone wants to shop during the few hours available to them,” she added.
Pakistan's Sindh province tightens COVID restrictions ahead of Eid
https://arab.news/4s3av
Pakistan's Sindh province tightens COVID restrictions ahead of Eid
- Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah says the provincial administration will also shut down recreational facilities after Sunday to curb the coronavirus spread
- The provincial administration of Sindh may ask the federal government to ban passenger train services during the Eid holidays
Pakistan's Sindh announces judicial inquiry into deadly Karachi plaza fire
- Around 80 people were killed in Karachi Gul Plaza fire that broke out on Jan. 17, says Sindh information minister
- Says initial fact-finding committee discovered fire tenders were provided water with delay, which affected firefighting
ISLAMABAD: Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon announced on Thursday that the provincial government has requested a judicial inquiry into a deadly Karachi shopping plaza inferno that killed around 80 people earlier this month.
The fire broke out at Karachi's famous Gul Plaza, a multi-story shopping complex in the city's Saddar area, on the night of Jan. 17. The blaze killed 80 and took three days to extinguish, while rescue and relief efforts took over a week.
Speaking to reporters during a news conference, Memon said a Sindh cabinet sub-committee, chaired by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, reviewed a fact-finding committee report on the Karachi Gul Plaza fire.
He said the fact-finding committee discovered that the Civil Defense department conducted fire safety audits of the mall and other buildings since 2023, but no effective, precautionary or legal action was taken to ensure such incidents were avoided. He said as a result, the Civil Defense director and the department's additional controller for district South were both suspended.
"A letter is being written to the honorable chief justice of the Sindh High Court in which we are requesting the chief justice to appoint a serving judge for a judicial inquiry," Memon said.
"So that we can review everything in accordance with the law himself and take decisions on it."
Memon said that there were around 2,000 to 2,500 people in the building when the fire broke out, adding that these included workers and visitors.
He said the sub-committee had also noted that fire tenders were provided water with delay which affected the firefighting services of the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC), Rescue 1122 and fire brigades.
The minister said the government had also suspended the chief engineer and in-charge hydrants of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation, and that action will be taken against them.
Memon said the committee had also concluded that the KMC, Rescue 1122 and fire brigades' firefighting tools and training to deal with an inferno of such a scale were "inadequate."
He said the government has also suspended the senior director of municipal services in the KMC and that departmental action against him will be taken for not ensuring that the fire staff was properly prepared to tackle such a blaze.
The minister said the sub-committee had directed the relevant department to carry out a needs assessment so that the firefighting capabilities of the provincial and local government are further strengthened.
Fires have become an increasingly frequent occurrence in Karachi, a megacity of more than 20 million people, where fire services remain severely overstretched and under-resourced relative to population density and the scale of commercial activity.
Successive deadly incidents have drawn criticism of the provincial Sindh administration over lax enforcement of building codes, inadequate inspections and limited emergency response capacity.
Sindh's opposition parties, especially the Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan, accuse the Sindh government of neglecting Karachi's infrastructural development. The provincial government rejects these allegations.
