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JANUARY
2009
ISSUES:
Slum
Fire Reignites Housing Concerns
A
fire which razed a slum settlement and killed 40 of its residents
earlier this month has brought to the fore the deplorable conditions in
which half of the 12 million people of this port city live - and
official indifference to their plight. The government speculates that
the blaze could have been caused by a live wire falling onto the roof of
the shanties which were made of bamboo, cardboard and other combustible
material.
"Initial investigations suggest there was no foul play in the
incident," city police chief Waseem Ahmed told reporters.
But Zahid Farooq, programme director of the Urban Resource Centre (URC),
is not entirely convinced and suggests that the conflagration could have
been a case of arson. "There have been too many instances where
such ‘accidents’ were planned to evict the poor from the land."
A nonprofit organisation, URC has been documenting incidents of fire in
the informal settlements of Karachi since 1995. According to their
survey, some 2,603 huts have been gutted in different settlements since
January 1997.
"These incidents have rendered more than 17,146 people homeless. In
these incidents 26 minors, four young girls, two women and four men were
burnt alive," URC’s director Mohammad Yunus told IPS.
In 2008, there were nine reported cases of hut fires in which a total of
622 huts were destroyed, eight people lost their lives and 21 suffered
injuries. "But this has been, by far, the biggest and most tragic
incident when such a large number of people lost their lives, in just
one night,’’ said Yunus. Accidental fires often happen due to
negligence in the dry winter months. "But, these are slow and the
people are able to flee. You will not see so many casualties,"
explained Yunus.
The
fire, whatever its cause, has underlined the need to provide housing for
the poor. "The government must look into delivering land for
high-density habitation at affordable prices," said Arif Hasan, a
Karachi-based town planner. Hasan suggests the introduction of a
"social housing programme" with "land mortgage
schemes".
Over the years, said Hasan, Karachi, once a multi-ethnic and multi-class
metropolis has become segregated into areas for the rich and poor.
"The poor have been pushed further out of the city limits due to
evictions which are carried out ruthlessly,’’ Hasan said.
‘’Those still inside the city live in constant fear of being thrown
out,'' Hasan said. ''When they are evicted and provided alternate land,
it is usually in the wilderness, far from their places of work, far from
schools, health and transport facilities and where their women cannot
find any work.’’
‘’Land use is unfortunately measured on the basis of commercial
value and not social and environmental considerations,’’ said Hasan.
He suggests the imposition of heavy penalties to stop market speculation
in land which causes prices to go up.
Jorge Anzorena, a founding member of Asian Coalition of Housing Rights,
currently on a visit to Pakistan, told IPS that one reason why it is
always the poor who are evicted is because "the rich find their
abodes an eyesore".
Citing United Nations figures, Anzorena said that an estimated 180,000
people move to cities every day due to poverty. "Every year one
billion people are migrating from rural to urban areas. If this trend
continues, it will double by 2030. It means there will be squatters all
over the place."
"But when people are organised, which is not easy as there is a
trust deficit, they will be able to resist evictions. However, it’s
not enough just to be organised,’’ he said.
Anzorena travels across South Asia for six months in a year and teaches
architecture for the other six months at Sophia College in Tokyo.
Meanwhile,
the powerful Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), in coalition with the
Pakistan People’s Party in Sindh, is negotiating with the Board of
Revenue to provide the survivors land to build houses. "Once we
have the land, it will just take us a month to provide them homes,"
said Ismail Rajput, the area nazim (councillor).
The provincial government of Sindh has announced compensation worth Rs
100,000 (1,266 US dollars) to each of the survivors of the deceased. It
has also assured the survivors that the government would make every
effort for their rehabilitation and provide them land near the Bin Qasim
outskirts.
But URC officials believe that land in Bin Qasim is not only far from
the city centre but also is an absolute wasteland and would push the
victims further into poverty. "These unfortunate people should be
provided land and money to build their own houses. And it should be
given where they were already living as that is where their workplaces
are," said Yunus.
Yunus said the government should hold a "free and fair
investigation to ascertain the cause of fire." He also said the
compensation offered by the government was inadequate for the survivors
to begin life afresh. "They should double the amount so that these
people can begin earning their livelihood." For now the survivors
are housed in the auditorium of a nearby government-run school on the
orders of the city’s mayor, Syed Mustafa Kamal, who belongs to the MQM.
"We have set up this temporary camp in the school till these people
are provided with alternative housing," said Rajput. "Our
party [MQM] is providing them with food, clothing and shelter. We have
set up a 24-hour clinic with both a male and female doctor. We also bore
the expenses for the burial of the 40 who died," he said. A
majority of the people living on the plot were migrants from villages in
the Rahim Yar Khan district of Punjab province and were daily wage
earners, scrap collectors or working as construction workers at nearby
construction sites. Their women worked as domestic help in the affluent
areas nearby.
Mukhtar Ahmed, who works as a chauffeur and has been living on the plot
for a dozen years, lost 12 members of his family including his wife,
seven daughters, three sons and a son-in-law. "In less than ten
minutes I lost my entire world," Ahmed said.
"Many such people come from villages in Sindh and Punjab when there
is a lull in farming to look for work in the urban areas. They keep
going back and forth and always live near their workplaces in shanties,’’
said Yunus.
(www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45564)
Shanty
fire, pose more questions
The police inquiry into death of around 38 people, mostly children, in
the blaze in North Karachi leaves much to be desired. It appears that
almost everyone, from inquiry officers to the city police chief, have
approached the tragedy with a preconceived mindset, even though it was
important for those conducting the inquiry to be sceptical and
open-minded. From very first day, inquiry officers reached the “conclusion”
that the blaze was “incidental fire”. The logic behind this was that
the victims had installed ‘kundas’, and to balance power, they had
“earthed” the connection at the plot where they resided, and it
caused fire.
Yet one wonders how this short-circuiting spread so rapidly and killed a
number of people, who could easily have escaped as the front side of the
shanties opened towards main road. Also problematic is the fact that
investigators did not collect samples from the spot to send them for
chemical analyses to ascertain possibility of arson. Instead water was
sprayed over the site. Since our system is heavily tilted in favour of
the rich and powerful, some may blame the poor dwellers for the recent
incident. The City Nazim said that more than 1,000 families live in
shanties in Karachi. He alleged that vacant land is being grabbed as
part of “an integrated plan” with connivance of the police, and that
land grabbers plan and bring people in to encroach upon huge plots of
land. However, it should be noted that the role of builders in
destroying the environment and civic facilities is much higher than the
poor living in slum areas and shanties. One wonders why commensurate
resentment against builders or land grabbers is not expressed, and why
is it that the poor seem to bear the brunt of all evils in the city. The
incident also highlights the importance of emergency response system,
which we currently lack.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister (PM) Yousuf Raza Gilani laid the foundation
stone of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Accident, Emergency and Trauma Centre to
be built at Civil Hospital, Karachi.
Since the Chief Secretary Sindh has approved Rs120,000 compensation for
a family of Ibrahim Haidery whose three siblings die in fire last month,
one hopes that the govt would show same enthusiasm for releasing
promised compensation to the victims of this fire incident.
(By
Imtiaz Ali, The News, 15/01/2009)
22
children among 40 killed in fire
At least 40 people, 22 of them children, died when a fire engulfed about
two dozen huts in the city’s North Karachi area after Thursday
midnight. Over 100 people were living in the huts built in a small area
of about 240 square yards.
Executive district officer (municipal services) Masood Alam told
reporters that some residents had lit a fire to keep themselves warm.
But one of the huts, made of bamboo and wood, caught fire and the wind
fanned it out of control. A few gas cylinders burst, adding the
intensity to the fire which soon engulfed all the huts. Most of the
victims were asleep at that time. There were walled houses on three
sides of the huts and the open side was blocked by flames. According to
witnesses, about 60 people living in huts on the open side managed to
escape.
“I was sitting with my friends when we heard screams. We rushed to
find out what had happened and saw the huts engulfed in flames. We tried
to put out the fire but it was beyond control. The fire brigade arrived
after some time and put out the fire, but by that time the damaged had
been done,” said a resident. People living in the area did petty jobs.
A taxi car and a motorcycle parked in the area were gutted. About 15
people suffered minor burns.
“I saw the charred body of a child stuck to his mother,” said a
worker of Edhi Foundation. “We have received 40 charred bodies.
Twenty-two of them are children, 12 women and six men,” said Dr
Mashhooduz Zafar, Medical Superintendent of the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.
Among the children, 12 were girls and 10 boys, aged one to 12 years.
“Most of the bodies were burnt almost beyond identification,” he
said. The survivors were taken to a nearby office of the Muttahida Qaumi
Movement and later to a government school.
An injured man told Dawn that over 100 people had been living in the
huts for several years and most of them hailed from Rahim Yar Khan.
Atta Mohammad, who suffered burns, said he had lost his wife and three
children. In the hospital, a middle-aged man, Asghar, said nine of his
relatives had been killed. “I came here to look for my sister and her
seven children, but all of them are dead.”
(By
Azfar-ul-Ashfaque, Dawn, 10/01/2009)
What
caused the fire?
The
exact cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained. Three different
theories have, however, been in circulation. Some neighbours claim that
the squatters on plots no. LS-6 and LS-7 were repairing “Koondas”
(illegal power connections) from a nearby power line which snapped and
fell on the plot. It sparked a fire which quickly engulfed all the
shanties.
A second theory, which also being circulated by government officials,
states that some of the residents had lit fires to warm themselves on a
cold and windy Thursday night. The wind carried embers of the fire to
some of the nearby shanties, which caught fire. This theory, however,
was refuted by survivors who The News spoke to. “If we wanted to light
a fire, do you think we would do that near the gate, which is the only
escape route we have? Do you think we’re suicidal?” one of the
survivors, 45-year-old dignified-looking Abdul Hameed, retorted
indignantly. “We were burnt! Our families have been murdered.”
A third theory stems from this statement made repeatedly by Hameed and
other survivors. They allege that the owners of the plot wanted them to
leave and had resorted to arson to drive them out.
(The
News, 10/01/2008)
Slums
susceptible to disaster without planning
As
the government announced investigations into Thursday’s midnight fire
that swept through dozens of homes in a North Karachi shanty town
claiming 40 lives (mainly children), experts have identified nearly 200
such itinerant settlements across the city with no civic infrastructure,
vulnerable to similar incidents.
While there is no city government study enumerating the number of
residential localities built purely with bamboo, straw and cartons,
experts engaged in such activities feel it is not possible to ascertain
the exact figures, but they would not be fewer than 200, ranging from 10
units to 100 in each town.
“They keep moving depending on their employment needs,” said Tasneem
Ahmad Siddiqui, chairman of Saibaan, a non-governmental organisation
providing shelter to the homeless. “One can’t exactly come up with
the figures but through surveys for our own work, we can say that the
number of such settlements would not be fewer than 200.” He said the
families residing in these shanties belong to the labour class, members
of which prefer to live near their workplaces and keep changing their
residences in line with their employment needs. With no immediate and
easy solution in sight, the veteran social worker said the relief effort
demanded planning and concentration from the authorities concerned to
avoid such incidents in the future.
But until the time the government reaches any decision, officials fear
these shanty towns remain at risk of similar incidents due to various
reasons.
However, in the North Karachi incident, the fire officials are not sure
about the cause of the massive blaze in the huts, erected over a
240-square-yard plot.
“Offhand we can say that since these settlements don’t have
regulated or legitimate access to civic facilities, they use
unconventional methods as alternates, which pose a danger,” said
Ehteshamuddin, the city’s chief fire officer. “Similarly, in the
winter, the winds are dry with low humidity and areas where such huts
have been set up are at serious risk of fire.”
However, he was not ready to single out any of the conventional reasons
behind the recent fire and said only proper investigations into the
incident could lead to the actual cause of the blaze, which killed
mostly children who were in deep sleep while their huts burned.
But the capability and expertise required for these kinds of
investigations to achieve the desired results remains a tall order for
the experts.
“Fire investigation is (based on) process and expertise,” said Tariq
Moen, secretary of the Fire Protection Association of Pakistan. “In
the first phase, it would definitely include interviews of the people
affected, witnesses and pictures of the affected parts, but I don’t
know how much these formalities have been met before initiating the
process.” He said following modern lines, one could reach the
conclusion that either the fire was caused by an incident or was an act
of arson for particular reasons. But here, he added, the fire
investigations – largely based on speculation and estimates – most
of the time never unearthed the actual reasons.
“There is a need to take experts on board to set up a dedicated
platform for fire protection and an awareness campaign among the masses,”
said Mr Moen. “And secondly, the defined rules must be implemented,
which would definitely help curb such incidents.”
Apart from efforts to keep the city safe from such deadly incidents, the
experts feel the need to plan the city in such a way which caters to the
needs of every segment of society rather than facilitating the
privileged class of the metropolis.
“Karachi is a low-density area in terms of population,” said Arif
Hasan, a renowned architect and city planner. “There is still space
available to provide shelters considering their needs and lifestyle.”
He doubted the efficacy of the proposed government plan to build
low-cost housing facilities for low-income people in Bin Qasim area,
recalling that in the past, flats in Lines Area provided to shelter-less
people and labourers could not achieve the desired results due to
ill-planning.
“The use of land must be designed (keeping in mind) environmental and
social considerations and not value,” said Mr Hasan. “But
unfortunately, in our city particularly land is being weighed on its
value without considering the social and environmental impact. If this
prevails, the trend may have some serious repercussions in the longer
term.”
(By
Imran Ayub, Dawn, 10/01/2008)
There
was no place to run
The
fire broke out around 11:30 p.m. on Thursday night in plots no. LS-6 and
LS-7, Sector 5-L, North Karachi, within the jurisdiction of the Bilal
Colony Police Station. The plots were “empty” and had been inhabited
by around 100 people who had lived there in around 40 shanties for the
past 12 to 13 years. All of them hailed from a village called Zeher Pir,
tehsil Khairpur, district Rahim Yar Khan, 28-year-old Muhammad Asghar
told The News. Asghar lives in a nearby shanty town. Many of those who
died in the fire on Friday were related to him, he said, holding back
tears. The plots are situated one behind the other and are surrounded by
houses on three sides. The fourth – the side facing the road – was
walled, and had a small gate. The fire started around 11.30 p.m. and
engulfed the entire plot within minutes. Fire tenders, however, were
quick in controlling the blaze, and none of the houses bordering the
plots were seriously damaged. “We have been living here ever since we
came to Karachi,” said 24-year-old Raza; “Where will we go if we
leave? We can’t afford to buy alternate housing.”
Twenty
children and twelve women were among those who burned to death in Friday
morning’s blaze. “We panicked because with the walls on three sides
and fire coming from the fourth, we had no idea where to go. Those who
could jump over the walls, did so. The rest died. This is why so many
women and children died too,” Raza explained. Chhipa, Edhi and
Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation (KKF) ambulances rushed the dead and the
injured to the ASH Trauma Centre. Bodies which could be identified were
handed over to the next of kin. Samples were taken from the rest and
sent for DNA testing to Lahore, and the results will be out in a couple
of weeks, the MLO on duty at the ASH, Dr Zahoor Ahmed, said. These
bodies have, meanwhile, been handed over to the Edhi centre. Most of the
bodies which were brought in on Friday morning were charred beyond
recognition. Many disintegrated as rescue workers tried to lift them out
of ambulances.
(The
News, 10/01/2009)
Necessity
trumps grief for some blaze survivors
Friday
was business as usual for some survivors of the North Karachi fire. The
massive fire, which broke out in a bunch of shanties in Sector 5-L North
Karachi, resulted in the death of 38 people, including 20 children, late
Thursday night. Among the dead were 10 boys, 10 girls, six men and 12
women.
Residents of the shanties did not hold down proper jobs; most of them
are rag-pickers, while some sell fruits on pushcarts. Many women work as
domestic helpers in nearby houses; most of the children helped with the
rag-picking.
The survivors set up their fruit stalls at Powerhouse Chowrangi right
after the funeral prayers of the deceased. “My brother is going to the
graveyard with the ambulance. He will take care of things there,”
Raheem told The News. He lost two children in the blaze which claimed
the lives of 38 people, including 20 children and 12 women.
“One of my sons was seven years old. The other was born less than a
year ago. My wife is at the shelter with the other women,” Raheem
said. “You think we don’t grieve, but if we were to stay at home
today, who do you think would feed our families? Almost everyone here
lost someone in the blaze, but we have mouths to feed.”
Other fruit vendors around Raheem laughed when asked about the
compensation announced by the government. ‘We’ll know about that
when we get it,’ they said.
Meanwhile, it is business as usual as grief is put on hold and material
concerns take the front seat for Raheem and his friends.
Funeral
prayers for the deceased were held Friday afternoon after Jumma prayers
at a ground two lanes behind the plots where the deaths occurred. Tight
security was ensured by Rangers and police personnel, as row upon row of
ambulances carrying the remains of the deceased drove by. Thousands of
people crowded into the ground and filled the adjoining roads or watched
from rooftops as the Imam burst into tears repeatedly, seeking
forgiveness from God for the deceased, who were later buried at the Shah
Muhammad Graveyard.
Meanwhile, the survivors have been housed in a nearby school building.
Some have been taken in temporarily by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)
unit office in the area. They will eventually be shifted to the Edhi
Centre, KKF workers told The News.
No FIR has been lodged yet, nor could the ownership of the plots be
determined, said SI Abdul Wahab from the Bilal Colony Police Station.
“We sent notices to the Civic Centre to find out who owned the plots,
but Friday is half-day, and everyone had left by the time our notices
got there,” he said.
CM sets up investigation team: Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Qaim Ali Shah,
has set up a three-member inquiry committee headed by DIG West Sardar
Abdul Majeed Dasty to investigate the causes of the fire. The inquiry
committee consisted of DIG West, SSP Investigation Khurram Waris, and
SSP North Karachi Dr Farooq. They have been directed to file the
findings within a week.
(By
Urooj Zia, The News, 10/01/2009)
The
anatomy of a shanty
Shanty
towns, both on leased and encroached land, have grown steadily in a
number of areas in the city. These settlements, aside from other
problems, present a huge fire safety hazard, which shows in the
increasing number of blazes that have broken out in shanties.
The News visited a few such settlements to inspect the structure of
these shanties, and why they are so susceptible to fire. Shanties in
Block 13 and Block 19 Gulshan-e-Iqbal, near Tayyab Goth, have both
fallen prey to infernos in the past, including an incident in which 150
shanties in Block 19 were destroyed recently on the night of December
22, 2008.
Each shanty is made mostly of wood with thick wooden columns serving as
foundations for the structures. The roof of these eight-feet high
structures are composed of “Chitais” made of date leaves and “Khaji”
leaves. In addition to these, some shanties use cotton chaddars to wrap
the walls or curtains at the entrances.
Shera, a resident of a shanty in Block 19 in Tayyab Goth, said that
fires usually break out there when someone carelessly throws a cigarette
or a lit match is accidently thrown into a pile of rubbish.
Adding to the potential of a fire breaking out is the fact that these
structures have all sorts of electric devices which are connected
through crude illegal electric connections (Kundas).
One shanty, which belongs to Ahmed, had a ceiling fan and a pedestal
fan. Though this particular shanty lacked the infamous DVD players,
refrigerators and television sets, the shanties visited in Block 13 of
Gulshan-e-Iqbal had the odd television set and many electric bulbs. The
choice of furniture used for resting on both the sites was wooden
charpoys with a rope mattress. Clothes and other cloth material lay
strewn at the shanty for lack of storage options.
Shanties are almost always placed close together with wooden columns or
Khaji leaves used as separators or fences. On cold nights, such as the
one on that fateful Thursday, when the humidity levels drop, the air
becomes profoundly dry and conditions become ideal for fire, and dry
items like wood, Khaji, and cloth become flammable.
(By
Gibran Ashraf, The News, 10/01/2009)
Survivors
deal with scars of
Lal Mohammad lost 22 members of his family inferno that claimed 40 lives
in North Karachi’s Sector 5-L.
A hysterical Lal Mohammad was being consoled by friends during the
burial, which was being performed at the Shah Mohammad graveyard in
North Karachi.
Wailing in Seraiki, Lal Mohammad questioned the purpose of his life
following the loss of his family: “What will I do? All of my family
members are gone now …”
Lal kept wailing throughout the burial. “If I knew this would happen,
I would have asked my family to sleep on the road,” he added.
Lal lost his wife and five children, his father Karim Buksh and mother
Zubaida, and three brothers – Rafiq, Mukhtar and Bashir – along with
their wives and children.
Kaleem, son of Mukhtar, who survived the fire said that he woke up from
the warmth of the fire to see the burning pushcart of his father. “I
grabbed my younger brother Nadeem and went for my parents, but their
room was up in flames and I couldn’t enter it, so I rushed out to save
our lives,” Kaleem, who works as a lab technician, recalled.
Lal Mohammad was not alone in his grief as there were many others who
lost more than one family member. Ranjhan lost his eight-year-old son
Saeed. He also broke down when the surviving family members were called
to attend the funeral prayers, which were held in an open ground located
behind the scene of Thursday night’s tragedy.
Supported by his friends, Ranjhan was being consoled by the area women,
who were trying to calm him down. In reply to a question about how the
fire broke out, a weeping Ranjhan expressed his ignorance over the cause
of the fire, simply saying that “there were huge flames everywhere.”
However, as the ambulances that contained the bodies of the victims
began to line up, the female survivors of the tragedy also lost their
nerve. Perhaps due to the precarious condition of the bodies, instead of
taking them out for the funeral prayers, the ambulances were lined up
for the prayers.
There was a slight delay in the funeral prayers as some members of the
Seraiki community wanted the burials to be postponed for a day. They
were taken to the sector office of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement where
the issue was sorted out. Shortly after, the funeral prayers were
offered and ambulances were dispatched for burial.
Since the bodies were badly charred and were beyond recognition, it was
decided that they would be buried in Karachi. Almost all of the dead
belonged to Punjab’s district Rahim Yar Khan. Some survivors of the
blaze did express their wish for the burials to take place in their
hometown, however. Some women from the neighbourhood told the media that
almost all the females residing in the ill-fated plot used to work as
domestic help.
(Dawn,
10/01/2009)
Infant
dies in shanty fire
A fire in six shanties claimed the life of a six to eight month old girl
in Gulshan-e-Iqbal on Saturday afternoon.
According to details obtained from the Fire Department, a fire broke out
at around 2 pm in six shanties in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Block 13 B, near
Gillani Railway Station. The minor, Alishba, daughter of Fazal, was
burnt to death. Fireman Tahir, while speaking to The News said that when
they reached the spot, six shanties were ablaze and after about an hour
they recovered the body of Alishba from the wreckage. Tahir said it
seemed that the girl might have been in a cot and while evacuating in a
hurry, the parents might have forgotten to take Alishba.
The body was dispatched to the Civil Hospital Karachi. The cause of the
fire could not be immediately ascertained.
(The
News, 18/01/2009)
Huts
on Fire
URC
has also been documenting incidents of fire in Katchi Abadis (informal
and low income settlements) of Karachi since 1995. A total number of
2,603 huts were gutted in different settlements Since January ’97.
These incidents have rendered more than 17,146 people homeless. 26 minor
children, four young girls, two women and four men were also burnt alive
in these incidents, besides a number of severe physical injuries and
lost of household goods.
Incidents
of fire in Karachi reported in 2008:
·
Three children were burnt to death while two others were injured in
a fire on 22nd
December 2008 in a hut near Sindhi School area in Ibrahim Haidery,
Bin Qasim Town.
·
A fire gutted almost 150 shanties in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Block 19. The
fire in Tayyab Goth, near Aziz Bhatti Park, Block 19,
Gulshan-e-Iqbal started around 5 am 22nd December 2008.
·
At least nine huts were gutted on 28 July 2008 at Sohrab Goth within
the jurisdiction of Sachal Police Station, as a result of which,
85-year-old Banu Bibi was burnt to death while sleeping and six of
her family members sustained burns injuries.
·
Over 100 huts have been destroyed when fire broke out in two huts in
Gulisatan-i-Jauhar area on 7th July 2008.
·
A minor child was burnt to death when a fire broke out on 5th June
2008 in a shanty in Block 11, Gulistan-e-Jauhar.
·
A fire burnt 10 huts in Bangali Para in Korangi Sau Quarters on 15th
February 2008 morning.
·
According to the community activists the fire was started from a
timber shop. The cause of the fire has not been known.
·
More than a hundred huts belonging to the Hindu community were
reduced to ashes and five persons were injured in an intense fire
that erupted in Junejo town Manzoor Colony on 13th February 2008.
·
Three minor girls were burnt alive while their mother was seriously
injured when a blaze engulfed an Afghan family’s hut in Janat Gul
town near Al-Asif Square Sohrab Goth on 12th February 2008.
·
A major fire on 31st January 2008 reduced over 250 huts to ashes in
Block-9, in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town near Aziz Bhatti Park. The fire
left 7 injured and most of the household goods were also destroyed.
Two
main causes are identified for these incidents; one natural and the
other planned. The planned incidents are those, in which the land
mafia is involved. To draw attention towards fire incidents in
Karachi, URC circulates reports containing facts and figures on the
issue to the press, NGOs and government agencies. (Source: URC)
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