A massive blaze that erupted in Millennium Mall located on Karachi’s Rashid Minhas Road on Tuesday, destroying over 500 shops, is almost doused by firefighters after several hours of hectic efforts, a rescue official said.
In November 2023, city planners, engineers and architects of building designs at a seminar were certain that some 90 per cent of all buildings in Karachi — residential, commercial and industrial — lacked a fire prevention and firefighting system.
Rescue 1122 spokesperson Hassaan Ul Haseeb Khan told the reports that the rescue force reached the mall within 15 minutes of receiving word of the fire at 4:06am.
There, a security officer told them that the fire had broken out in surveillance system of a control room because of a short circuit on the third floor.
The spokesperson suspected that the mall management may have initially ignored the fire.
When firefighters arrived, they saw flames had already reached the roof, where the management had stored chillers for the central air conditioning system.
This fueled the fire and heavy flames coming from it reached the windows of the adjacent Saima Mall and Residency building, causing panic of a fire in it.
But 12 fire tenders, supported by two snorkels, succeeded in bringing the blaze under control after chaotic efforts that continued for hours. Cooling operations are still underway.
It will take at least another two hours to put out the fire completely, said Khan. Firemen are scouting each shop to douse any fire there.
He put the number of shops severely damaged at about 500-600, with heavy financial losses, but with no casualties.
