KARACHI: Rescue efforts entered their second day on Saturday after continuing overnight, as authorities raced against time to locate survivors and recover bodies from the rubble of the collapsed residential building in Lyari’s Baghdadi area.
The decades old building located in the densely populated Karachi neighbourhood that housed over 40 people in 20 apartments crumbled on Friday.
So far, the rescuers have recovered 26 bodies — including nine women, 15 men and, and a ten-year boy and one-and-half-year-old girl — from the debris, whereas three people are undergoing treatment, as per the hospital administration.
The building’s collapse was marked by chaos and distress as relatives of the trapped victims attempted to assist rescue workers, inadvertently disrupting operations.
Rangers and city wardens were later deployed to cordon off the area and stop people from approaching the site. Heavy machinery is being used to clear the debris with rescue personnel using a Trapped Person Locator — a device that detects heartbeats under rubble — to identify survivors.
This equipment is deployed after each layer of rubble is cleared, making the operation lengthy but thorough. Authorities said the mission may take several more hours to complete.
With the search operation continuing for over 20 hours, District South Deputy Commissioner Javed Khoso on Saturday said that it may take up to eight to 10 hours to complete the rescue operation.
“This building was declared dangerous three years ago. A notice was issued to the building a month and a half ago,” the DC said adding that there were still 22 extremely dangerous buildings in Lyari — of which 16 have been evacuated.
He added that efforts were underway to evacuate the remaining buildings as well and warned of legal action over failure to comply with the directives.
Recalling the incident, Yousuf, one of the survivors of the building collapse, acknowledged that two notices to vacate the building had already been issued.
“The building shook twice before the accident. [I] was on the fourth floor and was going down the stairs with my aunt at the time of the accident,” he noted.
Meanwhile, speaking to the media during his visit to the incident site late Friday night, Karachi Commissioner Syed Hassan Naqvi advised the residents of the damaged buildings to move to another place to avoid any mishap.
“We cannot forcefully evict anyone,” the commissioner said, adding that he will hold a meeting with the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) on the issue of illegal constructions.
With the Sindh government forming a high-level committee to investigate the incident, which will submit its report in three days, the SBCA revealed that the collapsed structure was 30 years old and had been previously marked unsafe.
The SBCA claims it issued formal evacuation notices two years ago, and on 25 June 2025, also sent notices to K-Electric and the Water Board to disconnect utility services — but neither the connections were cut nor was the building vacated.
Reacting to the incident, Association of Builders and Developers (ABAD) Hassan Bakshi has urged the government to take over the dilapidated buildings and make arrangements for the residents to live somewhere.
“The buildings should be constructed and the residents should be sent to live on rent for two years,” Bakshi said, adding that the provincial government should arrange for a subsidy in case of cost overrun.
The ABAD official also highlighted that his forum was ready to cooperate and participate in this regard.
The yesterday’s incident, though unfortunate, is not a one-off accident as Karachi has witnessed a pattern of building collapses since 2017.
The deadly incidents are largely linked to illegal and dilapidated buildings, many of which have long been declared unsafe but remain occupied due to weak implementation by the SBCA.
The incident also sheds light on the existing threat posed by buildings already declared unsafe and unfit for habitation by the SBCA. The number of such buildings stand at 578 in Karachi with 456 of them being in the District South alone.
Other districts also face risk: Central (66), Keamari (23), Korangi (14), East (13), Malir (4), and West (2).
Experts stress that notices and banners alone are not enough. They urge the Sindh government to ensure the immediate evacuation of such buildings and provide temporary housing for displaced residents to prevent future tragedies.
