KARACHI: One man was killed and his body retrieved after a fire broke out at a residential building in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi on Wednesday, prompting authorities to deploy five fire brigade vehicles to control the blaze.
Karachi, Pakistan’s largest and most populous city, is home to hundreds of thousands of industrial units, residential neighborhoods and some of the country’s tallest buildings.
However, it suffers from a fragile firefighting system and poor safety controls, leading to hundreds of fire incidents annually.
Last month, a massive fire engulfed a plastic factory in the city, which took several hours to extinguish, though no casualties were reported.
“The fire was brought under control due to Rescue 1122’s quick response,” informed a statement released by the service, adding that its workers used foam to put out the flames.
“During the search, the body of a 55-year-old deceased man was recovered from the building,” it said.
The statement also mentioned that some people who were stranded on the roof were safely rescued.
“The final search operation will be conducted after the cooling process,” the statement continued.
The fire incident occurred at the Shah Faisal Colony, a densely populated neighborhood in the city.
One dead as rescue teams control fire at residential building in Karachi
https://arab.news/vnq5k
One dead as rescue teams control fire at residential building in Karachi
- Pakistan’s most populous city witnesses hundreds of fire incidents annually due to poor safety controls
- Rescue 1122 says the firefighters used foam to put out the flames, helped people stranded on the roof
12 killed, 27 injured in suicide blast outside district court in Pakistani capital
- Attack comes amid surge in violence against Pakistan by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan group
- Islamabad says attackers operate from Afghanistan with India backing, Kabul and New Delhi deny
ISLAMABAD: At least twelve people were killed and 27 others injured in a suicide blast outside a court in Islamabad on Tuesday, the interior minister said.
The explosion took place near the entrance of a district court in Islamabad’s G-11 sector while it was crowded with a large number of litigants.
“As of now, 12 people have been martyred and 27 have been injured,” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters.
“We are already treating the injured, our teams are in the hospitals already. We are providing them the best possible facilities.”
A security official who declined to be named said “Indian-sponsored and Afghan Taliban–backed proxy group “Fitna-ul-Khawarij” carried out the suicide bombing, referring to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group that Islamabad says operates from safe havens in Afghanistan, with backing from India. Both nations deny this.
The latest attack comes a day after militants including a suicide bomber tried to storm a cadet college in Wana, a city in the northwestern South Waziristan district, triggering a gunbattle that killed at least two of the attackers.
On Monday, Pakistani security forces said they had killed 20 Pakistani Taliban insurgents in raids on hideouts in the northwest region bordering Afghanistan as tensions between the two countries escalated. The army said eight militants were killed Sunday in North Waziristan, a former TTP stronghold in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and 12 others were killed in a separate raid in the Dara Adam Khel district, also in the northwest.
Meanwhile, Pakistan and Afghanistan have blamed each other for the collapse of a third round of peace talks in Istanbul over the weekend.
The negotiations, facilitated by Qatar and Turkiye, began last month following deadly border clashes that killed dozens of soldiers and civilians on both sides.
TP is separate from but allied with the Afghan Taliban and has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in 2021. Many TTP leaders and fighters are believed to have taken refuge in Afghanistan since then.
The Islamabad attack also takes place a day after a deadly car blast in India’s capital New Delhi killed at least eight and injured 20 people. An Indian officer said on Tuesday that police are probing the blast under a law used to fight “terrorism.”
Arch-rivals India and Pakistan frequently trade blame for supporting militant groups against each other. A militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in April that killed 22 people, mostly tourists, sparked a four-day confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbors in May that saw them exchange artillery, drone and air strikes before a ceasefire was brokered by the US.
