KARACHI: A fire that broke out at a solar panel and battery warehouse in Karachi on Tuesday was extinguished after it raged on for over 24 hours and spread to a nearby perfume depository, a rescue official said on Wednesday.

Blazes and accidents are common in South Asia’s factories and warehouse, many of which operate illegally and without proper fire safety measures.

Hassaan Khan, a spokesperson for Rescue 1122, said emergency responders arrived at the solar panel and battery warehouse shortly after the fire was reported at around 10am on Tuesday. The fire quickly spread to an adjacent warehouse where highly flammable cosmetic products were stored, complicating firefighting efforts.

The fire was extinguished during the afternoon and the cooling process had also been completed, Khan said. He added that rescue officials were completing a search to check for any flammable items. 

“According to the owners of both warehouses, their valuables, estimated to be worth Rs500 million, have been destroyed in the fire,” Khan told Arab News.

Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and the main commercial hub, is home to hundreds of thousands of industrial units and some of the tallest buildings in the country. However, it has a fragile firefighting system and poor safety controls, leading to hundreds of fire incidents annually.

Last November, a blaze at a shopping mall killed around a dozen people and injured several others. In April 2023, four firefighters died and nearly a dozen others were injured after a fire broke out at a garment factory, while 10 people were killed in another blaze in the city at a chemical factory August 2021.

In the deadliest such incident, 260 people were killed in 2012 after being trapped inside a factory that caught fire.