LAHORE: Ten members of a same family including six children and two women burnt alive when a fire swept through a house in Lahore’s crowded Bhati Gate residential area in the wee hours of Wednesday, the police and rescue officials said.
In the dead include two women, two men and six children between six to 16 years lost their lives, Deputy Inspector-General of Lahore Police Ali Nasir confirmed.
According to an official statement from Rescue 1122, the department was alerted about the fire at 2:32am. In response, the rescue service deployed 33 rescuers and 11 vehicles to the incident’s location.
The DIG said the cause of the inferno could not be immediately ascertained, but police investigators suspect an electrical short-circuit started the fire in the crowded residential area.
لاہور میں صبح سویرے افسوسناک واقعہ
والڈ سٹی بھاٹی گیٹ کے علاقہ میں گھر میں اتشزدگی سے ایک ہی خاندان کے 10 افراد جاں بحق ہوگئے۔جاں بحق ہونے والوں میں زیادہ تر بچے ہیں۔ pic.twitter.com/BtBmttTKzI— Muhammad Umair (@MohUmair87) July 12, 2023
The Rescue 1122 statement further said that the fire erupted on the second floor of the house, which was located in a “very congested area”. Rescue 1122 further said that the bodies had been shifted to Mayo Hospital.
The list released by Rescue 1122 showed that five of the deceased were teenagers while two of them were a four-year-old and a seven-month-old.
Meanwhile, Punjab’s interim chief minister Mohsin Naqvi has taken notice of the matter and sought a report from the Lahore commissioner on it. He ordered a comprehensive investigation into the matter and offered his condolences to the heirs of the deceased family.
Later, the fire was confirmed to have been controlled and the cooling process was under way, the rescue service said.
State-run Radio Pakistan reported that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “deep sorrow and grief” over the incident and “prayed for the departed souls”.
Smoke detectors and other technology that can improve fire safety in residential buildings are not often used in Pakistan, and fires at homes and other public spaces like shopping malls are common.
