At least 55 dead in Karachi mall fire as families provide DNA amid painstaking search at Gul Plaza
KARACHI, Pakistan — The death toll from a weekend fire at a shopping mall in Pakistan’s largest city climbed to at least 55 as rescuers combed the wreckage of the three-story Gul Plaza and families waited for news of missing loved ones, authorities said.
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“A total of 55 bodies have been recovered since Saturday night” when the blaze erupted, said Javed Nabi Khoso, deputy commissioner of Karachi’s south district, speaking to AFP. The recovery effort continued as emergency teams worked through the charred structure to locate human remains.
Relatives of those still unaccounted for criticized the pace of the operation at Gul Plaza, saying they have received few updates while crews navigate hazardous debris. Rescuers are scouring the wreckage section by section, officials said, but progress has been slow.
More than 50 families have submitted DNA samples to help identify the dead, provincial health official Summaiya Syed told journalists. With many victims badly burned, authorities said genetic testing is critical to matching remains with families and expediting formal handovers.
Among those waiting is Faraz Ali, whose father and 26-year-old brother were inside the mall. “We want the bodies to be recovered and handed over to their rightful families,” he told AFP. “That is all so that the families may receive something, some comfort, some peace. At least let us see them one last time, in whatever condition they are, so that we may say our final goodbye.”
Fires are common in Karachi’s markets and factories, where aging infrastructure, crowded conditions and safety lapses have long been concerns. Blazes on the scale of the Gul Plaza inferno, however, are rare and have renewed questions about building standards and emergency preparedness in the city of more than 20 million.
A government committee has launched an investigation into the disaster, though the cause of the fire was not immediately clear. Officials have not provided a timeline for when the site will be fully cleared, citing the need for careful recovery and identification work.
Authorities urged patience as they worked to stabilize the structure and retrieve remains safely. Families gathered outside hospitals and the cordoned-off mall awaited calls from officials overseeing the DNA identification process, while local leaders pledged accountability once the probe determines what sparked the blaze and how it spread through the building.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
