Rescue teams were in the final stages of clearing the wreckage of a five-storey building that collapsed in the megacity of Karachi killing 27 people, officials said yesterday.
Residents reported hearing cracking sounds shortly before the apartment block crumbled around 10am on Friday in Karachi’s impoverished Lyari neighbourhood.
“Most of the debris has been removed,” Hassaan Khan, a spokesperson for government rescue service 1122 said, adding that the death toll stood at 27 yesterday.
He expected the operation to finish by the afternoon.
Authorities said the building had been declared unsafe and eviction notices were sent to occupants between 2022 and 2024, but landlords and some residents said they had not received them.
Shankar Kamho, a 30-year-old resident, was out at the time when his wife called to say the building was cracking.
“I told her to get out immediately. She went to warn the neighbours, but one woman told her ‘this building will stand for at least 10 more years’,” he said.
“Still, my wife took our daughter and left. About 20 minutes later, the building collapsed.”
“My daughter is under the rubble,” 54-year-old Dev Raj said at the scene on Saturday. “She got married just six months ago.”
Roof and building collapses are common across Pakistan, mainly because of poor safety standards and shoddy construction materials in the South Asian country of more than 240 million people.
But Karachi, home to more than 20 million, is especially notorious for poor construction, illegal extensions, ageing infrastructure, overcrowding, and lax enforcement of building regulations. — AFP
