Chowrangi

PNSC, like other state owned institutions was victim of greed and corruption during past regimes. However, it never went through such torment as experienced during current government’s tenure. PNSC Building situated at Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan Road (MT Khan Road) hosts head office of Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC). Several floors are rented out to multitude of organizations including Banks, Telcos etc.

On Sunday August 19th, 2007 the fateful building caught fire and several floors are gutted useless. This was second incident in last 6 months, previous fire broke out on February 18 (another Sunday) from the 11th to 16th floors. The multinational companies moved away and the floors had since been empty.

According to the News:

• The fire broke out at about 2p.m. However, KPT and CDGK officials said that they received information at about 2:24. Ambulances of KPT, Edhi, Chippa and KKF rushed to the spot and shifted the injured to the nearby hospitals.

• Four snorkels and 22 fire tenders of the City District Government Karachi (CDGK), Karachi Port Trust (KPT) and Pakistan Navy (PN) were called on to extinguish the fire. Fifteen fire tenders and three snorkels belonged to the CDGK, three fire tenders and one snorkel to the KPT and four fire tenders were of the PN.

• Sources revealed that the CDGK snorkels that were claimed to be able to reach as high as 120 feet, could not work efficiently owing to some technical fault. As a result, they said, the fire engulfed other floors. However, only the KPT snorkel was able to reach up to 85 feet.

• Fire fighters from the KPT said that they rushed the spot within three minutes of the call. Two of the KPT firemen entered the building after breaking the doors and utilised the building’s own fire fighting equipment. However, they said, the building hydrants ran short of water. One of them said that the wind was blowing with a high velocity which led the blaze to spread quickly and engulf the upper floors. He said that the staffers told them that there was a short circuit in the AC wiring, but the real cause had not yet been officially confirmed.

• According to a senior fire officer of the KPT, a building with a height of more than 75 feet is considered a high-rise and should be equipped with a self-sufficient fire fighting system but this was not the case with the PNSC structure. Normal fire tenders, he added, could not work over the seventh floor. He further said that such a building should have fire detection system (fire sensors) and alarms, which the building didn’t have, because none of the staff came to know about the eruption of the fire on time. By the time they became aware of the situation, it was quite late.

While the fire was on, KPT and CDGK were playing the blame game:

Interestingly, the KPT and CDGK had been pinning the responsibility of extinguishing the blaze on each other. Chairman KPT Vice Admiral Ahmed Hayat said that it was the responsibility of the CDGK, while City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal said his department was only there for help, “for it’s the responsibility of KPT to control the fire there.” Poor coordination between the three agencies could be witnessed from the fact that all the three worked in different portions of the building.

A senior fire officer told The News that, as per standard, the chief fire officer of the agency in whose jurisdiction the building is located, leads all other agencies, maintaining that the building in question falls in the CDGK’s jurisdiction.

What was the cause of this blaze? Was the building torched down to hide evidences of corruption or a deal is in offing for reconstruction as PNSC building may be declared uninhabitable. If nothing else this certainly is a case of criminal negligence on the part of CDGK, PNSC building administration etc. However, there are zero chances of a real inquiry and all debris may fall on the deceased administration manager.

Image Source: Daily Express

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