InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
LAHORE, Pakistan - At least 30 workers were killed and 34 injured in two separate factory fires in Pakistan on Tuesday, police and officials said.
The first incident occurred in the country's second largest city Lahore when a sudden fire trapped dozens of workers in a shoe-making factory, killing 21 workers and injuring 14.
"We have received 20 dead bodies. Five injured persons were also brought here, (the) condition of three of them is critical," doctor Zahid Pervaiz, medical superintendent of the main Mayo Hospital, told AFP.
Another body and nine injured were taken to the nearby Mian Munshi hospital.
Tariq Zaman, a government official in Lahore, said the fire was caused by a technical fault in an electricity generator.
Karamat Ali, a spokesman for the government's emergency rescue team confirmed to AFP that 21 dead bodies and 14 injured workers were taken to hospital.
He said fire crews succeeded in bringing the blaze under control after several hours and rescue workers had evacuated all those trapped inside the factory.
The second incident took place in Pakistan's largest city Karachi when fire erupted in a garment factory late Tuesday, killing at least nine workers and injuring 20 others, police said.
"Several workers are trapped inside. We have recovered nine dead bodies and 20 injured," police official Sayed Mohammad Yousuf told AFP.
"Two women were among the dead. I fear the death toll may rise," he said, adding that the cause of the blaze was yet not known.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf "expressed shock and grief over the loss of precious lives and directed the concerned authorities to provide best medical treatment to the injured", his media office said after the first fire.
