Child falls into manhole, dies

KARACHI:

An eight-year-old boy died after falling into an open manhole near a wedding hall in Shah Faisal Colony.

Last year 19 people died from falling in manholes because the elected local governments fail to put a lid on the hole.

Upon receiving the information, Edhi, Chhipa, fire brigade, police, Rangers and a large number of area residents reached the spot and started searching for the child in the drain.

After a two-hour struggle, the rescue teams were unsuccessful. However, a labourer had found the child's body from the main nullah. Edhi, Chhipa and other rescue teams reached the main nullah and took the child's body first to Shah Faisal Colony police station and then to JPMC for legal formalities.

The deceased, Ibad Asad, had come with his family to attend the Aqiqah of his cousin, his paternal uncle told The Express Tribune at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where they had come to collect the child's body.

Shah Faisal Colony Town Chairman of, Gohar Khattak, who belongs to Jamaat-e-Islami, said that covering manholes is the job of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation.

The town is not even given the budget to cover manhole covers. Khattak said that he and his team was saddened by the death of the child.