Firefighters on Thursday brought a blaze under control at Rimpa Plaza on M.A. Jinnah Road in Karachi, with no casualties reported, a rescue official said.
This is the second time in a month the building has experienced a fire incident. On December 3, flames gutted the fourth and fifth floor of the 13-story building, while partially destroying the sixth and seventh floors. No casualties were reported.
Thursday’s fire broke out on the roof of the second floor, where disposable goods were being stored, Rescue 1122 spokesperson Hassaan Khan said.
He noted that gutted material, such as rubber, from the Dec 3 fire was stored on the second floor, which caught fire again today.
A timely response brought the fire under control, with no casualties reported, Khan added.
“As soon as the Central Command and Rescue 1122 received the information, the fire and rescue team, along with two ambulances, four fire brigade trucks and one snorkel were dispatched to the scene,” the spokesperson said.
SHO of the Nabi Bux police station said an investigation into the incident was underway.
Separately on Thursday, firefighters brought under control a fire that erupted on the first floor at Park Towers in Clifton due to a short circuit, with no casualties reported, officials from the Boat Basin police station confirmed.
The cooling process was underway, Khan said.
He noted that as soon as the Central Command and Rescue 1122 received information of the fire, one fire brigade truck and one ambulance were dispatched to the site of the incident.
Rescue 1122 safely evacuated people from the building, Khan added. A probe into the incident was also underway.
Fire incidents have lately become quite common in different buildings in Karachi, with inadequate safety measures, unregulated construction practices, and a lack of fire drills making the matter worse.
In May 2023, a fire broke out on the eighth floor of Rimpa Plaza in a warehouse of spare parts. No one was killed or injured in the blaze.
On Tuesday, city planners, engineers and architects at a conference raised concerns about the effectiveness of regulatory bodies like the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) in Karachi, and questioned their failure to enforce building by-laws by approving illegal construction of multi-storey residential, commercial, and industrial buildings without fire safety plans.
They highlighted that 70 per cent of residential, commercial and industrial buildings in the city lacked adequate fire safety systems, emphasising that failure to adhere to building codes during construction had resulted in substantial loss of life and property in the event of fires.
They also said that the issue of fire safety had assumed alarming proportions amid such incidents already reaching 3,000 this year alone in Karachi.
“In 2023, there were 2,228 fire incidents, and by November this year, more than 2,900 fires have already been reported,” said Fire Protection Association President Kunwar Waseem.
“The lack of adherence to fire safety regulations has led to significant loss of life and financial damages. We should move fast before it’s too late and when we use the word ‘we’ it means that this challenge demands collective efforts from both the government and businesses of the country.”
He cited official data of the city’s fire department which said that at 29 fire stations of the metropolis, a total of 2,228 calls of distress were received in 2023 which were responded by the officials sending fire tenders to the respective sites.
“Similarly, in 2024 till November more than 2,900 calls were received by different stations in the city. The city fire department officially releases the data after December so see the number could cross 3,000 mark by the end of the year,” he added.
