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Massive blaze guts factory in Landhi

By Faraz Khan

KARACHI: An inferno burned down a used clothes recycling factory in the Landhi Export Processing Zone on Friday.

The fire, which broke out around 12:10 pm on Friday, was still burning strong even after continued efforts of more than nine hours and it destroyed the factory spread across an area of 8,000 square yards.

The factory was previously called Japan Chemical Factory but nowadays it was being used for recycling used clothes commonly known as ‘lunda’, after which the factory’s workers took them to the markets.

After the fire erupted, all the fire tenders from the city, along with two snorkels and four huge water tankers, were immediately called to extinguish the deadly blaze, while all the factory employees evacuated the building.

Only one person, a fire fighter named Mehmoodul Haq received injuries in the incident when the wall of the gutted factory collapsed on him. He was immediately shifted to the nearest hospital for medical treatment and then shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

Chief Fire Officer (CFO) Ehtishamuddin Siddiqui while taking to Daily Times, said that the fire was of third-degree in nature and it was hard to put it out because of limited resources. He said the factory is huge and full of clothes, making their task more difficult.

Talking about the cause of the fire, he said, that it was obviously due to the negligence of the factory staffers.

The CFO accused the factory management of not taking sufficient safety measures. He said the administration of the factory had dumped clothes making the place vulnerbale to a huge fire. The fire completely gutted the factory and the first floor of the building also collapsed.

The CFO further said that initially they could not find an entrance to the factory, but managed to do so after nine hours of effort. “I think the fire would take further three to four hours to be completely doused and then we would start the cooling process,” the CFO explained.

The lethal fire also damaged other nearby factories. The CFO said that due to the polyester and nylon clothes present in the factory, the fire quickly engulfed the whole place. “The owners and the management of the factory have run away,” he said.

Volunteers from different welfare associations and CDGK, along with contingent of law enforcers, also reached the scene and immediately cordoned off the whole area.

The employees of nearby factories evacuated their respective buildings and the gas and power supply of the Landhi Export processing Zone was temporarily suspended. Fire tenders were still trying to douse the fire when this story was filed.

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