News

2 dead with women and children trapped

PAKISTAN

Following on from our story at the beginning of the week, it has emerged that another incident has taken place, this time in Pakistan but again involving women and children. 

Two people were killed with between 50 and 60 others feared trapped after a factory in a residential area collapsed following a boiler explosion.

Two deaths have been confirmed by Fahim Jahanzeb, the spokesman for the state-run Rescue service.

He continued that, another 50 to 60 people were believed to be trapped in the debris of the factory at Multan Road.

Witnesses said the bodies of a man and a woman had been found in the rubble.

Police officials said 10 people, including four women and two children, had been pulled out by rescue workers. 

Officials said that when the three-storey factory building collapsed after the boiler exploded, three houses next to the factory also collapsed.

Rescue workers and local residents initially dug through the rubble with their hands as heavy machinery took some time to reach the site due to the narrow streets in the surrounding area.

One police official said 50 people had reported for the morning shift at the factory, but local residents have contested that claiming up to 100 people were in the building at the time of the blast.

Local residents said the factory, which made pharmaceutical products, had been sealed in the past. They said they had complained to authorities for over a decade for the factory to be shifted out of the residential area.

Lahore police Chief Malik Ahmad Raza Tahir confirmed to reporters that the factory had been sealed twice in the past.

“Such factories should not be run in residential areas,” he said.

Footage on television showed the building had been reduced to a pile of bricks and twisted metal.

Witnesses say, that the roof's of two storey's had collapsed following the blast that happened at 8.15 am.