Breaching fire codes

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The massive blaze that engulfed Millennium Mall on Karachi's Rashid Minhas Road, gutting over 500 shops and threatening nearby residential buildings, is indicative of a city operating in violation of its own safety laws. Despite the scale of the damage, this fire is not unprecedented.

Before this, a similar inferno tore through the Chase Store on Shaheed-e-Millat Road. These recurring disasters point to one central truth that commercial buildings in Karachi continue to flout fire safety codes with impunity, and authorities continue to look the other way.

Under the Sindh Building Control Ordinance and Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations, all commercial structures are legally required to maintain clear fire exits, install smoke detectors, provide fire extinguishers and undergo regular inspections by the fire department. Yet, enforcement remains almost non-existent. Millennium Mall, like many others in the city, lacked essential safeguards.

The fire intensified when it reached the chillers on the rooftop — an area often neglected in safety assessments. These are not unfortunate oversights. They are systemic failures. What Karachi desperately needs is a coordinated fire risk audit of all commercial complexes — especially malls, plazas and high-rise residential-commercial hybrids.

Occupancy certificates must be made conditional on compliance with fire codes, not merely on paper but through on-site inspections. No building should be allowed to operate without clearance from the civil defence and fire safety departments.

Moreover, penalties for non-compliance must be revisited. Token fines do little to deter developers and owners who cut corners to save costs. Where gross negligence is established, closures and criminal liability must follow. For a city of over 20 million people, Karachi's firefighting capacity remains woefully inadequate. Expanding fire brigade resource must be treated as a municipal priority, not a budgetary afterthought.