4 Firefighters Killed in Garment Factory Blaze in Pakistan

Four firefighters were killed and about a dozen others injured in a massive fire that broke out at a garment factory in the southern port city of Karachi, rescue and police officials said Thursday.

The police announced that it was not immediately known the cause of the fire that broke out in the factory on Wednesday night and caused its collapse.

Firefighters had barely managed to put out the fire when the collapse occurred, and rescuers pulled the bodies of the firefighters out of the rubble.

Officials said a number of fire engines had been dispatched to the site of the accident in an industrial area of the city, and that an assessment was being made of the impact of the fire on a nearby building.

Such incidents are common in Karachi, the capital of the southern province of Sindh. In August 2021, at least 10 people were killed in a massive fire in a chemical factory in the city, and in the deadliest incident of this kind, 260 people were killed in 2012 after a fire trapped them inside a clothing factory.