Public safety: ‘Two buildings next to collapsed plaza vacated’

Town Planning, Buildings Departments to meet this week to decide the fate of these buildings, says DCO.

GUJRANWALA:

Two buildings adjacent to a shopping plaza that collapsed in Satellite Town of Gujranwala on Friday have been declared dangerous and vacated.

The businesses operating in these buildings – Shop and Save, a departmental store, and Sajawal Sweets – have been closed for an indefinite period.

The Buildings Department and the Town Planning Wing of the Gujranwala district administration will this week decide a course of action for these buildings.

DCO Chaudhry Ameen told The Express Tribune that the walls the two buildings shared with the collapsed plaza had huge cracks in them. “These walls can collapse any moment,” he said. The DCO said scaffolding had been put up to support the roofs in the two buildings temporarily. He said a meeting of Building Department and Town Planning wing would be called in a week to review the situation.

As many as 14 people, including 10 employees, had died when the building collapsed in Satellite Town on Friday. These included two children, an employee Naveed Khalid, and poultry vendor Zulfiqar and masons Abdus Sattar and Abu Bakr.

Of the 29 rescued from the scene, eight are still hospitalised. The doctors treating them at Gujranwala district headquarters (DHQ) hospital described have their condition as ‘out of danger’.

Khalid’s mother Nazia Bibi told The Tribune that she had received a call from his son from his cell phone on Friday night. She quoted him as saying that he was caught under the debris. His body was recovered by Rescue workers on Saturday.

Satellite Town police have registered an FIR against Sajid Naeem Kamboh, owner of the collapsed building, under Sections 322 (causing death inadvertently) and 427 (negligence that may prove fatal) – both non-bailable offences – of the Pakistan Penal Code.  DSP Azam Mehr said Kamboh’s house had been raided but they had still to arrest him.

Complainant Saleem Shafiq had stated that he was waiting for his nephew Muhammad Asif and his wife Fauzia Asif (parents of the two children who died under the rubble) in his car in front of the building when it collapsed.

The owner of the collapsed plaza had estimated the losses at Rs20 million.

The provincial government has announced a Rs200,000 compensation for the families of each of the deceased and Rs25,000 for each of the injured.

Falah-i-Insaniat assists Rescue 1122

The rescue operation ended on Saturday night. Rescue 1122 workers had been assisted in the work by Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) volunteers.

FIF Camp Administrator Ahmed Mansoor told The Tribune that 10 ambulances and over 50 volunteers of the FIF had participated in the two-day operation.

Mansoor said besides medical aid, the FIF also distributed food among people who remained on the scene to find out about the fate of their relatives trapped under the rubble.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2012.