Over 150 huts were reduced to ashes in a fire that broke out at a shanty town in Gulshan-e-Qadri area of Malir in Karachi in the wee hours of Tuesday. The blaze started in the huts which spread very quickly and destroyed more than 150 huts. At least three persons were injured in the blaze and were shifted to hospital by the rescue personnel. As many as eight fire brigade vehicles managed to extinguish the flames after a hectic operation and now the cooling process was underway. The shanty dwellers residing in the huts in Malir No 15 were evacuated safely, said the rescue officials. Three people including a woman, however, sustained critical burns in the fire and shifted to hospital for treatment.

In November 2021, a fire had destroyed about 100 huts when the blaze was erupted in a slum of Karachi. The fire erupted in the dwellings along the Lyari River, under a bridge in central Karachi in the Teenhatti neighbourhood. About 10 firetrucks had managed to extinguish the flames after several hours. A similar fire in 2020 had gutted about a hundred of the burlap-and-plastic dwellings in the same neighbourhood, whose residents get by mostly by working odd jobs and begging. Thousands live in open areas along the Lyari. Some have tin roofs but the majority of the houses are made up of cane, burlap and plastic.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP