Gerry’s D’nata fire: Inquiry committee absolves CAA, ASF, firemen of blame

Claims media exaggerated the incident.

KARACHI:

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Airport Security Force (ASF) and firefighters were not equipped to fight the devastating blaze, which engulfed a cargo warehouse after the June 8 attack on the Karachi airport, the finding of a committee has concluded.

The fire in Gerry’s D’nata Cargo Complex located within the airport resulted in the death of eight employees and triggered  widespread speculation about authorities’ failure to respond effectively.

“The committee also noted that though airport was already under threat, but [...] the authorities and cargo-handling agents were neither trained to handle such emergencies,” the three-page report said.

In what appears to be a hastily prepared report released by the Aviation Division, the fact finders fell short of blaming anyone.

Everyone has been absolved of responsibility, but the media is blamed for exaggerating the incident.

Basing its findings on post-mortem reports and interviews of people involved in rescue service, it concluded that the employees died before 2 am on June 9. The report mentions that the committee reviewed phone call records of the relatives of Gerry’s D’nata employees, but did not say if their claim of being in touch with their loved ones was false.

The report focused on determining whether the employees were trapped in the cold storage of the cargo warehouse.

CAA's fire-fighting department has also been absolved of any responsibility. Driving its conclusion from interviews and CCTV footage, the committee concluded that fire-fighting could not be started until 3:45 am on June 9 as the area had not been cleared.

There was no word on why the fire could not be doused more than 24 hours after the incident.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 27^th, 2014.