Pakistan: fire in Karachi slum destroys 100 huts

Blaze started in dwellings in the centre of the country's largest city

Slum dwellers return to their homes after a fire in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi. Reuters

The fire destroyed about 100 huts but no-one was injured. AP Photo

A woman griefs while she and others collect their belongings in Karachi, Pakistan, Saturday, Nov. 20, 2021, following a fire that gutted hut homes. Scores of huts were burnt to ashes as the fire erupted making dozens of families homeless in a slum of Karachi, local media reported. (AP Photo / Fareed Khan)

The fire reduced the dwellings along the Lyari River, in the Teenhatti neighbourhood, to debris. EPA

Slum dwellers survey the damage after the blaze. EPA

Many families lost all their belongings in the fire. EPA

Residents grieve together after they return to the scene of the fire. AFP

About 10 fire engines arrived at the scene quickly and managed to extinguish the flames. EPA

About 100 hutments were destroyed when a fire broke out at a slum in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi.

No one was injured in the blaze, which began early on Saturday in the dwellings along the Lyari River, in the Teenhatti neighbourhood, according to Inayat Ullah, a senior official at the city’s central fire station.

About 10 fire engines arrived at the scene quickly and managed to extinguish the flames within hours.

It was not immediately known what started the blaze, said Mr Ullah. He said such incidents were common at the start of winter when the poor living in makeshift homes light fires to keep them warm.

A similar fire last year gutted about a hundred of the burlap-and-plastic dwellings in the same neighbourhood, whose residents depend on odd jobs and begging for survival. No one was hurt in that blaze either.

In the latest incident, by daylight, men, women and children of Teenhatti were seen searching for any belongings they could salvage from the ashes.

Karachi is the capital of southern Sindh province, where thousands live in open areas along the Lyari. Some have tin roofs but the majority of the houses are made up of cane, burlap and plastic.