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KARACHI: The death toll of the fire in a Karachi garment factory on
Wednesday reached 298 with several dozen workers still unaccounted for
and presumably dead in the basement that could not be penetrated by
recovery teams till the filing of this report.
The factory fire that had claimed 40 lives on Tuesday night Sept 11
turned out to be the most deadly industrial incident in Pakistan's
history when it emerged on Wednesday that the death toll was far higher
than what was initially estimated.
The fire broke out shortly after 6 p.m. on Sept. 11 when the work shift
usually changes, Zahid Ali, a worker at the stitching department on the
second floor of the four-storey building, said by phone. A blast was
heard when the generator failed to switch on after an electricity
failure and smoke filled all the floors, he said.
Workers threw sewing machines at the windows in an attempt to escape
since all the main exits on each floor were locked, said Ali. His
brother, also a worker, suffered arm and leg fractures while escaping
from the second floor. Those who couldn’t get out suffocated and
collapsed, resulting in the large number of bodies that were charred
beyond recognition, he said.
As heart-wrenching scenes were witnessed at hospitals and the site of
the incident, it emerged that the inferno had also killed 17 women and
seven children who had accompanied their mothers to the factory. A
fireman was also killed during the rescue work but he could not be
identified.
According to officials who visited the factory on Wednesday, the
condition of the structure had deteriorated to such an extent that it
could collapse at any moment while the intensity of the fire was such
that it could not be controlled completely even on Wednesday night.
"Although the fire is under control, the fire fighters are still trying
to cope with the situation," said one of the fire fighters. "A few
portions of the factory are still in flames, which could be seen from
outside the building."
According to some workers who were not present when the incident
occurred, salary was to be disbursed on Tuesday and around 2,000 workers
were present when the deadly fire broke out. Some women workers, who had
children with them, belonged to the stitching department and were also
killed.
The GCP event was set for 6pm to midnight local time (13:00 - 19:00
UTC). The result is 21685.383 on 21600 df for p = 0.340 and Z = 0.413.
It is important to keep in mind that we have only a tiny
statistical effect, so that it is always hard to distinguish
signal from noise. This means that every "success" might be
largely driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real
signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect can
be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of
similar analyses.
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