Pakistan factory collapse death toll rises to 44
The death toll from the collapse of a factory in
eastern Pakistan rose to 44 on Sunday as
rescuers said that hopes of recovering more
survivors were growing increasingly slim.
The incident,which took place near the
Punjab provincial capital of Lahore on
Wednesday, has underscored poor safety
standards in the underdeveloped South
Asian country of 200 million.
“Forty-one bodies have been recovered
and three wounded workers who were
rescued alive, died at hospital,”
Muhammad Usman, a top administration
official in Lahore, told AFP.
He said that 40 percent of the debris
from the collapsed building had been
removed and rescuers were continuing
the search with great care in case there
were more “miracle” survivors trapped
beneath the debris, but added that the
chances of that were very slim more than
72 hours after the collapse.
On Saturday rescuers pulled a teenage
boy alive from the rubble 50 hours after
the structure toppled.
The teenager had been trapped for more
than two days and his family, thinking
him dead, had already identified and
buried another recovered body they
believed to be his.
The four-storey Rajput Polyester
polythene bag factory came crashing
down on Wednesday evening.
Officials have said at least 150 people
were in the factory when it came down
and it was unclear how many — dead or
alive — may still be trapped.
Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif
has said the factory may have suffered
structural damage in a 7.5 magnitude
earthquake last month, which killed
almost 400 people across Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
Provincial labour minister Raja Ashfaq
Sarwar said that an inquiry into the
collapse “is being conducted and we will
probe all angles”, with a report to be
submitted within two weeks.
At least 24 people died last year when a
mosque collapsed in the same city, while
more than 200 people lost their lives,
mostly due to collapsed roofs, following
torrential rain and flooding in 2014.
In 2012, at least 255 workers were killed
when a fire tore through a clothing
factory in Karachi, one of the deadliest
industrial accidents in Pakistani history.
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