Fire erupts in AC's outer unit at Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab's office; no casualties reported

KARACHI: A fire broke out in an air conditioner’s outer unit at Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab’s office on the first floor of the KMC building on Tuesday, police and Rescue 1122 said. South Deputy Inspector General Asad Raza told Dawn that it was a “minor fire”. The fire was brought under control after fire tenders were sent to the site, Rescue 1122 spokesperson Hassaanul Haseeb Khan said. There were no casualties and only the AC’s outer unit was damaged, he told Dawn, adding that the fire probably erupted due to a short circuit. Fires frequently erupt in buildings across Pakistan due to a mix of poor infrastructure, weak enforcement of safety regulations, and widespread negligence. Many structures lack proper fire exits, alarms, and emergency protocols, while faulty wiring and overloaded power systems increase the risk of electrical short circuits. In Karachi, at least three people suffered minor injuries from smoke inhalation after a huge fire erupted in a factory at the Karachi Export Processing Zone (EPZ), near Landhi Industrial Area on Monday. The blaze destroyed half of the three-storey unit and badly damaged other factories. Another massive fire had broken out at the city’s Gul Plaza shopping mall on the night of Jan 17 and claimed at least 73 lives. The blaze took nearly two days to be fully extinguished and left over 1,100 shops in ruins. In early February, a massive fire in a plastic factory at Landhi EPZ had engulfed several nearby factories, and it had taken 13 hours of efforts to bring it under control. Days later, a fire erupted in a high-rise building near Karachi’s Baloch Colony on Feb 12, with around 150 people evacuated. On Feb 17, a fire had also reupted at a chemical factory in the SITE Industrial Area. The next month, a blaze that broke out in Imtiaz Superstore’s Zamzama branch was brought under control after hours-long efforts by rescue officials. In June, hundreds of people were evacuated as a fire erupted in the cold storage of a department store situated in a mega shopping mall on Rashid Minhas Road in Federal B Area.