Rescue teams were in the final stages of clearing the wreckage of a five-story building that collapsed in Pakistan’s megacity of Karachi, killing 27 people, officials said yesterday.
Residents reported hearing cracking sounds shortly before the apartment block crumbled at around 10:00 am on Friday in Karachi’s impoverished Lyari neighborhood, which was once plagued by gang violence and considered one of the most dangerous areas in Pakistan.
“Most of the debris has been removed,” Hassaan Khan, a spokesman for government rescue service 1122 said, adding that the death toll stood at 27 yesterday morning.
Photo: EPA
He expected the operation to finish by the afternoon, he said.
Authorities said the building had been declared unsafe, and eviction notices were sent to occupants between 2022 and last year, but landlords and some residents said they had not received them.
“My daughter is under the rubble,” 54-year-old Dev Raj said on Saturday. “She was my beloved daughter. She was so sensitive but is under the burden of debris. She got married just six months ago.”
Roof and building collapses are common across Pakistan, mainly because of poor safety standards and shoddy construction materials in the South Asian country of more than 240 million people.
Karachi, home to more than 20 million people, is especially notorious for poor construction, illegal extensions, aging infrastructure, overcrowding and lax enforcement of building regulations.
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