Megacity currently has almost 1,000 trained firefighters, compared to the required number of 15,000 to 20,000.
View of the site after a fire broke out at the Gul Plaza shopping center. Photo: PPI
Located in the heart of Karachi, Gul Plaza, a three-story shopping mall where generations found everything from imported tableware to the perfect pair of sandals, made headlines last month for all the wrong reasons.
A massive fire tore through the mall on the night of January 17, reducing the structure, which once housed 1,200 small and large stores, to ashes and piles of smoke-blackened rubble, as well as killing 80 people and many still missing.
While the fire is said to have been started by minors in a store selling artificial flowers, findings also suggested that the lack of working fire escapes and the density of shoppers and stalls packed into the building made the situation worse.
It took rescuers at least 10 days to comb through the remains of the 70,000-square-foot complex built in the 1980s, raising questions about urban governance, fire safety and rescue capacity.
Calling the fire, the deadliest in more than a decade, just the tip of the iceberg, urban planners fear that the megalopolis could suffer another similar accident if immediate preventive measures are not taken, particularly strict implementation of fire safety and rescue capacity standards.
The country’s most populous city, home to more than 20 million people, comprises hundreds of shopping malls similar to Gul Plaza, as well as both residential and commercial skyscrapers, and only a few have adequate fire safety mechanisms, leaving them prone to similar disasters.
Read more: Investigation reveals how Gul Plaza fire became a death trap
A fire safety audit conducted in 2023 by the Sindh government showed that only 6% of buildings in the city’s three major commercial centers had an adequate fire safety mechanism.
The report recommended that urgent measures be taken to ensure fire safety standards in the remaining buildings, but to no avail.
“Karachi is vulnerable to such incidents simply because of a number of issues related to unplanned urbanization, densification, overcrowding and lack of management and rescue capacity,” said Amber Alibhai, secretary general of Shehri-Citizens for a Better Environment, a non-governmental organization.
Transparency, non-regularization of illegal constructions
talking to anadoluAlibhai noted that the growing demand for housing and the lack of enforcement of building and fire safety regulations have made buyers vulnerable to illegal constructions, where “fire safety is not a priority.”
Lax construction laws, he added, make it possible to later regularize these constructions. He called for transparency in all approvals of commercial and residential constructions, and no approval of illegal constructions.
Arif Hasan, a veteran architect, cited lack of planning, maintenance and monitoring, along with non-implementation of fire regulations, as key factors behind massive losses in fire incidents in Karachi and other big cities.
“Fires occur and can occur anywhere in the world. The problems are their frequency, the government’s rescue capacity and the extent of human losses,” Hasan said. anadolu.
He said a holistic approach, comprising regular planning, maintenance and monitoring, and implementation of fire safety standards, including modern firefighting mechanism, could go a long way in mitigating the impacts of such disasters.
Also read: Gul Plaza’s economic toll exceeds Rs 100 billion
“No new building should be handed over to the developer unless it meets all fire safety standards, while the government must ensure that standing structures, especially skyscrapers, meet safety standards,” he added.
Fire and politics
The latest incident, the worst since the 2012 Baldia factory fire that killed 289 people, has also highlighted governance gaps, pushing the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which has ruled the province since 2008, on the defensive.
Opposition parties in Karachi, including the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and the Muttahida Quami-Pakistan Movement, as well as some traders, accused authorities of failing to launch a rescue and firefighting operation in time, which could have saved several lives and contained the fire.
The provincial government and Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab denied the allegation but acknowledged the lack of safety standards in the metropolis.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has now given an ultimatum to the government, private offices and high-rise buildings to implement fire safety norms.
Images circulating on social media showed government officials visiting the city’s congested markets and buildings and persuading owners to clear illegally occupied roads and adopt fire safety mechanisms.
“Demoralized” firefighters
Last year, according to official statistics, around 1,700 fire incidents, mostly small-scale, were recorded in Karachi.
Karachi currently has only nearly 1,000 trained firefighters, compared to the required number of 15,000 to 20,000 as per international standards.
Read this: SHC CJ appoints Justice Agha Faisal to head Gul Plaza inferno probe
The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) has only 30 fire stations, 57 fire engines and six ladder trucks to serve the sprawling metropolis, far less than global safety standards, which require one fire station for 100,000 people.
To make matters worse, several fire trucks have been out of service for several years.
According to Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan, former fire chief, there is not a single hydrant dedicated to firefighters in the city.
The KMC has underground water tanks in several areas, but they too have been dry for years due to water shortage, Khan said. anadolu.
“A fire truck has to travel an average of six to eight miles to fetch water while maneuvering through crowded roads before reaching the fire scene,” he said. “The situation gets even worse during peak hours.”
According to Khan, who retired in December 2024, the city has just over 700 firefighters, many of them without proper protective equipment such as helmets.
So much so, he added, that firefighter personnel have not received their risk benefits for several years. “They feel demoralized by the current situation.”
Also read: MQM-P announces plots for families of Gul Plaza victims
“I can tell you that firefighters have never been a priority for KMC officials. They don’t even bother to look at the relevant files,” he said.
Supporting this view, Alibhai also blamed people’s attitude towards security.
“The authorities and the general population do not take fire safety seriously,” he said. “It’s a way of thinking.”
