At least 11 people, eight of them women and three teenage boys, were killed when a three-storey factory building owned by a pharmaceutical company caved in after a huge blast in Lahore, Pakistan yesterday.
Nineteen injured workers were rescued but many others remained trapped in the rubble till late in the evening (some TV channels put the death toll at 14).
Witnesses and rescue personnel said a huge blast was apparently caused either by the boiler or by gas cylinders in the boiler section of the factory.
The building collapsed trapping over 50 workers, most of them young women and teenage boys. The factory was located in a residential area and the blast also destroyed an adjacent house and partially damaged another.
According to a resident, Orient Labs (Pvt) Ltd. which deals in veterinary injections had been sealed by government agencies at least twice in the past. It was illegally operating in the area and residents had filed a case in a civil court seeking closure of the factory because it was in the residential area.
The intensity of the blast shook the entire area and panicked people came out of their homes. Some of them started rescue work immediately after the blast and were later joined by personnel of rescue agencies.
Senior Superintendent of Police (Operations) Sarfraz Ahmad Falki told Dawn that police received a call about the blast at around 8:30am and a second call later saying that the building had collapsed trapping the people inside.
He said rescue work was continuing till late in the night.
He said the blast appeared to have taken place in the building’s rear section which housed boilers. Some gas cylinders were also lying there. He said he feared causalities might rise because rescuers had not been able to remove the huge amount of debris. Police identified the deceased as 13-year-old Muhammad Asif and Tanveer Sagheer, Salma Bibi, Fauzia Amjad, Nasreen Sardar, Ambreen, Faisal, Maryam Akhtar and Shakeela. A headless body found in the debris was identified as that of Alisha, 16. A teenage boy could not be identified.
A Rescue 1122 official said that according to the attendance register at least 45 men and 17 women workers had entered the factory in the morning. A worker, who identified herself as Perveen, said she did not report for duty on Monday.
"Soon after hearing about the accident, I reached the place to look for my younger sister and saw some people struggling out of the rubble.” She said she did see any organised rescue work.
She said her sister was not among the dead or the injured and she was still waiting for her safe recovery. Shomaila Anwer, who was admitted to the Jinnah Hospital with minor wounds, said the blast took place soon after she had gone to her workplace.
Roofs and walls started falling on us.
She said she heard screams of people trapped in the debris. Khalid Habib, whose house was partially damaged, said the factory was sealed on the orders of a judge after residents had filed a case for removal of the factory from the residential area. But the owners broke the seal 15 days after the court’s decision.
According to him, the owners had built more illegal structures and the authorities concerned did not respond to several pleas made by the residents. The DIG (Operations) Ghulam Mehmood Dogar said three brothers, Sheikh Zaheer, Sheikh Zafar and Sheikh Zubair, were running the factory and a few other outlets in different parts of the city.
He said police had no authority to raid and seal factories illegally operating in residential areas.
Meanwhile, the Punjab government announced 500,000 rupees (US$5,500) compensation for heirs of each of the deceased and 75,000 rupees ($820) for the injured.
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has constituted a three-member inquiry committee led by Punjab home secretary Shahid Khan and comprising chairman of the Chief Minister’s Inspection Team Najam Saeed and DIG Major Mubashirullah. It will submit its report to the CM in 48 hours.
Hunjarwal police registered a case under Section 302 of the PPC against the three owners of the company on behalf of the state.
