A 24-year-old man died after he fell off the State Life Building opposite Zainab Market in Saddar that caught fire on Wednesday morning.
The deceased, Ovais Baig, came for an interview for the post of executive engineer at the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC). He used to work at a factory in Landhi but was unemployed for the past two months.
At around 11 am, the fire broke out on the first floor of the 13-storey building. The building has proper equipments in case of emergencies so the people tried to extinguish it themselves at first, said chief fire officer Ehtishamuddin Siddiqui. At around 11:20 am, they called the fire department that dispatched two fire trucks, but the young man had jumped off by then.
There were around 2,000 people inside the building and all of them managed to evacuate safely. Unfortunately, Baig was caught in the fire and the fumes.
In an effort to save his life, he climbed out of the window on the eighth floor but it was unclear whether he jumped off himself or lost his grip on the window pane. The chief fire officer said it would be premature to comment on this.
“The Baldia factory fire has created a sense of fear among us and that is probably the reason why he panicked and climbed out of the window,” said Siddiqui.
“We cannot say what exactly caused the fire, but it appears that there was short-circuit among the air-conditioner wires in the ventilation duct,” he said. The fire caused damage to the first floor only but the smoke reached all the way to the top, he added.
Several people gathered at the roof of the building and were rescued when the fire trucks came. The survivors said that they tried looking for the exits when the fire started, but there was so much smoke that they could not see properly. Manzar Aziz, who works in the building, said that thousands of lives were saved because there were proper emergency exits and firefighting equipment. “It is unfortunate that the young man panicked,” he added.
According to a KESC spokesperson, around 900 employees of the utility remained safe. Sadly, the deceased was not aware of the fire safety system, he said.
Baig was the second eldest among five siblings. His father used to work at a factory but he had left the job a few months ago. His friend, Imtiaz, told The Express Tribune that he talked to Baig right before the incident. He told him that he was waiting for his turn and asked him to pray that he gets the job.
He was rushed to Jinnah hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. The doctors said that he had several broken bones and he died shortly after he came in.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah also paid a visit to the building. He directed the commissioner and health secretary to make sure fire safety equipment and emergency exits are available in all buildings.
State Life chairman offered his condolences to the family of the deceased.
According to a press release, the fire started inside the duct of an electrical distribution panel. All the employees were safely evacuated and the emergency exit controls system was also fully operational, it said.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 29th, 2012.
COMMENTS (7)
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To be very precise the poor man wanted job where it is very hard to be hired , now one more jobless man died . Instead of this the govt should do something to create job openings for new graduates in Pakistan.
Oh the benumbed mind people of karachi,whats wrong with u.I wonder whether the humanity lies among you or all of you are devoid of it.There were all spectators,and movie makers only except the rescuers,nobody felt the life struggle by that innocent guy,they all enjoyed the sinking boat and nobody advanced for save his life,alas,alas.
I felt so terrible after learning that a yong man died because some people enjoyed the sheer agony of the victim. What ever the reasons; being a human we must have acted by all means possible to save that young man. Join the JaanBachao facebook community to educate ourselves and people. You can also use #JaanBachao tag on facebook to show your support.
If fire brigade did not arrive on time, people should have done something.
Extremely tragic incident, could have been averted if Safety Fall Catch Mat positioned timely. I wish and request authorities to equip our rescue services and fire fitters with safety fall catch mats.
Its an awful incident.We being a human being living in acivilized society must also know the measures to prevent from such miseries.Atleast the peoples( includind all) who were watching that the boy was hanging outside the buildind why not they have put something like tarpulen or bags of cloths or the cartons as precautionary measure on the floor to prevent the person from falling on the floor.This all caused because we must not take respnsibilty for doing anything by our self. We just put the respnsibilty on the others and simply try to wait and see. Civil defense training including first aid training should be conducted on every level by NGOs and civil society to increase awreness inorder to coup such kind of situations.
Shameful thing is that all the media teams was trying to capture that poor soul but none of them tried to help him, call a rescue team or do anything.