Today's Edition
ISLAMABAD (dpa)
Rescue teams were racing against time to find survivors in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Saturday after a multi-storey residential building collapsed, killing at least 16 people.
“The accident resulted in the deaths of at least 16 people,” a rescue department official said.
The victims were nine men, six women and a child. More than 20 people were injured in the incident.
Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab Siddiqui said the rescue operation was still under way in Lyari, a densely populated neighborhood where the building had collapsed on Friday.
While the exact number of residents is not yet known, local administration officials said around 100 people might be living in the building. Families anxiously awaited news of their loved ones.
“It might take another 10-12 hours to complete the rescue operation,” a district administration official said.
He said there was a possibility of survivors being trapped under the
rubble. But it is feared that the number of deaths may increase.
Local media aired images of the collapsed building - which the authorities had previously declared unfit for living - and showed rescue workers searching for survivors under the rubble.
Current reports sugges that there may be 300 unsafe residential buildings in Karachi.
