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Two fire incidents in Pakistan claim 40 lives,injure nearly 60

11 September 2012 23:48 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Two factory fire incidents that occurred in Pakistan on Tuesday have claimed 40 lives and wounded 57 others, according to local media, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

A fire broke out at about 4:35 p.m. local time at a shoe factory in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, killing at least 25 workers and injuring 27 others, said police.

The fire first broke out at a generator supplying electricity to the factory due to short circuit and quickly spread to the chemical materials piled up near the generator, which eventually set the whole factory building with two storeys on blaze.

It took hours for the fire fighters to put out the fire.

Police said that the shoe factory, located in the northern outskirts of Lahore, is not registered and the owner of the factory and his son were also killed in the fire.

Well before the Lahore shoe factory fire was put out, there came the news that another fire broke out at a garments factory in the southern port city of Karachi.

The fire first broke out on the first floor of the four- storeyed building located in the western part of Karachi and then spread to the fourth and second floors, said rescue workers, adding that there were an estimated 100 workers working inside the building when the fire broke out.

The fire killed at least 15 people including three women and one child, and injured more than 30 others, said rescue workers.

Police said that the fire was due to short circuit caused by the heavy rains that had hit the city over the last couple of days.