Short-circuit: Man suffocates to death in factory fire

The garment factory was located in the basement of an apartment building in Nazimabad.

KARACHI:

A man suffocated to death on Thursday when a fire engulfed a garment factory located in Nazimabad, within the limits of Nazimabad Police Station.

According to the fire department officials, the fire broke out at around 5am at a hosiery garment factory in Nazimabad No. 4, near Hadi Market. The factory is located in the basement of Mehreen View apartments.

The incident created panic in the building and residents of the apartment block rushed to the street as the smoke filled their rooms. The police rushed to the spot and two fire tenders also reached the site to extinguish the fire. They were later joined by seven more fire trucks and a water tanker of the fire department.

It took the firefighters around seven hours to extinguish the fire. The fire department officials said that the factory was located in the basement of the building and had no proper path for the fire tenders to get close to the fire.

An unconscious man was found in the factory and was taken to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where he died during treatment. The deceased was later identified as Afroz, the watchman who used to live inside the factory and could not get out in time. The police shifted his body to the Edhi morgue after completing legal formalities.

Cloth and machinery worth thousands of rupees were gutted in the fire. “In basement fires, it is often difficult to ascertain the cause but it looks like it may have been caused by a short circuit,” said an official of the fire department.   

Published in The Express Tribune, May 16^th, 2014.