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Updated at 8:40 a.m. ET: KARACHI, Pakistan -- At least 261 people burned to death as separate fires swept through two factories in Pakistan, police and government officials said Wednesday, raising questions about industrial safety in the country.
Flames raced through a garment factory in the teeming commercial capital of Karachi, killing 236 people. Weeping relatives in hospitals and morgues heaped criticism on the deeply unpopular government.
"People started screaming for their lives," said Mohammad Asif, 20. "Everyone came to the window. I jumped from the third floor."
Rehan Khan / EPA
A man tries to identify body of his relative at a mortuary following a huge fire at a garment factory in Karachi, Pakistan, Wednesday.
In the eastern city of Lahore, a fire raged in a shoe factory, killing at least 25 people.
More photos: Blazes at factories in Karachi and Lahore
Critics say Pakistan's corrupt and ineffective government has failed to tackle the country's problems. The country is racked by a Taliban insurgency, widespread poverty, spiraling crime and daily power cuts.
"The owners were more concerned with safeguarding the garments in the factory than the workers," said garment factory employee Mohammad Pervez, holding up a photograph of his cousin, who is also a worker there and is missing. "If there were no metal grills on the windows a lot of people would have been saved. The factory was overflowing with garments and fabrics. Whoever complained was fired."
The Guardian newspaper quoted injured factory worker Mohammad Ilyas, who also said that bars on the windows had stopped workers from escaping easily:
"Some of us quickly took tools and machines to break the iron bars," he said, speaking from a hospital in Karachi, the Guardian reported. "That's how we managed to jump out of the windows down to the ground floor."
"Within two minutes there was fire in the entire factory," said worker Liaqat Hussain, 29, from his hospital bed where he was being treated for burns all over his body. "The gate was closed. There was no access to get out, we were trapped inside."
Supplied international firms?
Ali Ahmad, 33, who owns a Karachi firm called Nizam Textiles, which does not own or operate either of the affected factories, said the Karachi factory was owned by two brothers. One was out of the country and the other was missing, he said.
"The word in the industry is that he has gone AWOL, which is, frankly, a natural reaction to the way the cops and media are investigating this," he told NBC News.
Ahmad said the factory likely supplied the international market.
"If these factory owners had international clients, that means they had to worry about social compliance, which is a trip or two per year from the compliance and standards guys and other auditors who report to their foreign buyers," he said. "If the social compliance checks had been failed by the factory owners, and they were still producing for foreign buyers, then this is both a local and an international crime. It's also an ethical problem for international buyers."
He said it was difficult being an entrepreneur in Pakistan.
"You have strikes, load shedding [power outages], local mafias charging you turf protection money -- you name it," Ahmad said. "Plus you have ruthless buyers sitting in the U.S. who don't care what you do, as long as you do it on time ... we take a hit every time we're late. That means lost margins. That means we do what we need to do to make our orders, fast. This factory owner may have been working extra shifts just for that purpose."
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On Wednesday, a provincial minister ordered an inspection of all factories and industrial plants in Sindh province within 48 hours. Karachi, home to 18 million people, is the capital of Sindh.
A preliminary provincial government report on the Lahore fire concluded that the closure of the emergency exits led to the deaths and labor and safety regulations were not applied, government sources said.
Asif Hassan / AFP - Getty Images
Pakistani firefighters work to extinguish a sudden fire after it trapped dozens of workers in a factory in Lahore on Tuesday.
At a Karachi hospital, about 30 bodies burned beyond recognition were lined up at a morgue.
"There is no space left here. It's full," said ambulance worker Wasif Ali. "They keep coming."
Senior Superintendent of Police Amir Farooqi told Reuters that police were raiding buildings in different parts of Karachi to search for the factory owners.
In Pakistan's largest city, 'Old Glory' is flammable and profitable
Farooqi said 35 people were injured in the garment factory fire and bodies were still being recovered from the facility, which employed about 450 people.
The latest death toll in Karachi was 236, said police chief Iqbal Mahmood.
Muhammed Muheisen / AP
Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.
Smoke was still rising from the factory as rescue workers pulled out charred corpses and covered them in white sheets. Relatives of workers stood in the street awaiting word of their fate. Several wept.
Aid workers become targets as Pakistan faces new humanitarian crisis
The cause of the garment factory fire was not clear.
In Lahore, workers at the shoe factory suspected that the fire was caused by a problem with a generator.
"We saw our colleagues burning alive, in flames," said Shabdir Hussain, from his hospital bed. "We could do nothing. We saved our lives by jumping from the roof."
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Al-Jazeera reported that the factory had been built illegally in a residential part of Lahore.
Successive governments have been unable to provide a reliable power supply so factories have to have their own generators, powered by diesel or petrol, if they want to avoid regular, lengthy power cuts.
NBC News’ Waj Khan in Islamabad and Reuters contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
and Obama thought raiding Pakistan was a good idea.. since when has killing 13 different Prime Ministers and neo-Muslim officials been a good idea? go get em chuck!
Dare I say that is 261 we don't have to worry about?
These workers were doing slave labor in unsafe conditions to support their families. They were not terrorists.
You know them all personally Texas? Say hello to their families for me then.
My condolences to the victim's families and friends. Truly a horrible way to die.
Now, does anyone else find it peculiar that two industrial fires with horrible loss of life would both occur on the same day in the same country? Could this be the work of terrorists or other extremists seeking to topple the Pakistani government? The Pakistani government is never more than a tenuous coalition of people who don't get along very well in the best of times (sounds like the USA, doesn't it?). Could this have been sabotage? We just listed the Haqqani network as terrorists. Could this be their message to the Pakistani government?
A truly horrific thing. I'm sure it will be blamed on overheated machinery or someone smoking. I have my doubts.
I might add that political instability in Pakistan is a very serious problem. They have an extensive stockpile of nuclear weapons. In the event of revolution or civil war in that country, the security of those weapons becomes a literal modern nightmare. Pakistan has plenty of suitors (North Korea, Iran) who would just love to get their hands on them, to say nothing about Al Quaeda or the Taliban.
I hope these fires really were accidental. If they were not, then something sinister is brewing in Pakistan.
Yes we need to deregulate industry . That way we don't have to read about third world countries , we can read about this happening in our factories .
Aren't you all missing the point? American greed and the need for high fashion at a cheap price is to blame. Look at labels folks, how many textile items are made in Pakistan? Cheap labor is why American companies out-source their manufacturing. Put the blame where it really is. It's not about humanity it's about the dollar.
ROFLOL !!
And if Obama had a son I bet he would look like the kid in
the photo reading the Koran bible
At least they didn't have those awful labor unions strangling them. And look how many jobs were created by this fire: Rescue workers, cleanup, firefighters... /sarcasm
well, 200+ not a bad start, now we can send more foreign aid to these people who hide terrorists, and hate us??? what a joke??? i could care less...
260 less Muslims and that's a good thing
Seems like this kind of thing is a bigger problem than some idiot making a movie ridiculing their religion.
This Looks a lot like the Triangle Fire of 1911....
Sad....
Someone needs some better building codes!
Someone needs to translate either IBC 2012 chapter 10, Or NFPA 13 and NFPA 101 into Urdu, Sindhi, and Punjabi and send it to Pakistan!!!!!
Pakistan factory fires kill at least 261
Ahh! thats so sad! Should have been 261,000
the free market wins again!
C'mon conservatives- who's with me?!
Get those pesky regulations out of our economy! Nobody loses, other than the people who die and I don't hear them complaining.
Pakistan: The new Tranglewaist Factory wher they lock you in because of their fear of you quitting a @!$%# hole job. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire
Who needs OSHA, right?
Did you hear about the fire at the old shoe factory? 2,000 soles were lost.
You are a definite heel.
apparently they had to sock each other just to get out of the windows
Wonder who will foot the bill on this disaster.
it's a funny thing that when i went to pakistan, i wasn't scared of poor pakistanis making a living as porters for mountain climbing and hiking. they were probably the most humble people you could ever meet. Their rule was whatever belonged to them belonged to their guests (I was with Americans and Europeans). I haven't met a single other group of people like this in the world.
But an extremely racist American stuck in a closed box is what I would be scared of.
Tragic for sure but recall AMERICAN workers trapped in a chicken processing plant under similar situations. The workers were UNION members! Does anyone know what US companies were getting cheap labor benefits from this "garment" factory? Even if not US it's all about "PROFIT" at the least possible labor and other busines related costs! This is not the first time for this type of tragedy nor will it be the last....even in the USA!
Maybe some day all parents can afford to travel to such countries....with children and witness the living and working conditions of REAL POOR POOR people unlike those in the USA! Our new media does not began to report the real stories of these people. The media reports ONLY tragedies such as this one.
Innocent factory workers trapped and killed due to negligant and lack of safety plan in building hundreds of famlies loss their love one and victims families will suffer for ever and kids future will be darked,
In Asia and Pakistan have no bylaws or act for those factory owners or business owners no matter how many peoples die but owner will get away and no one will be caught or prosecute be cause "MONEY TALK'
My prayer and thoughts goes to desease families May Allah give them strenght to bear the great loss and bestow all desease paradise keep soul in rest in peace. Ameen .
As we are living in 21 century and modern world and human life has been improved and safety is first and security measure are improved and change , Before any business or building built or open to public most country by laws inforce safet rule regulation for every one, But in Pakistan most place have no safety requirment to comply because of the negligant of government and Citizen both are responsible .its only possible when government will establish rules and commission and empower Fire department to visit every facilities and inspect the area for all kind of safety and make sure every owner of house,commercial, business has safety and fire exit and complete plan for evacuation in case of Fire,and any type of emergeny to protect peoples life and property, In Pakistan Every province government should enforce law and establish the rule and creat department to inspect the and fine the building owner in case of not following the law.
it really shamed for the government are incompeten and faliure to provide safety .
Anybody remember that fire in the Tyson poultry processing plant in Arkansas about 20 years ago?
All the doors but one were secured with chains and padlocks?
How many people died?
Wasn't a big deal made of it though because Tyson was a big donor to the govenor soon to be pres.
I think his name was Billary something,something.