KARACHI: Eleven people have died after a huge fire erupted in a multi-storey shopping mall on Karachi’s Rashid Minhas Road on Saturday.
Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab has confirmed the number of casualties taking to his X, formerly Twitter, account.
“Fire had been extinguished & cooling process is going on. I can so far confirm 10 casualties & 22 persons have been injured,” he wrote.
According to fire brigade officials, nearly 50 people trapped inside the RJ shopping mall on the city’s busy artery have been rescued in the rescue operation involving two snorkels, eight fire tenders and a bowser.
A spokesperson for the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) said they received nine bodies, while a rescue official said one body each was shifted to the Civil Hospital and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.
Officials said that more people are still there and efforts are being made to bring them to safety. The officials added that fire at the shopping centre has been brought under control, while the cooling process is currently underway on one of the floors.
The fire that broke out at around 7am on the second floor engulfed the fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the shopping mall, but it was not clear what caused it.
The injured have been shifted to a nearby healthcare facility for treatment. Six of those injured are in critical condition, officials said.
Rauf Hamid, who was rescued from the building, told Geo News many people are still trapped.
“When the fire broke out, we saved ourselves by rushing towards a safe room. The smoke was so intense that we didn’t understand what was happening.”
