Pakistan's building crash survivors worry about future
On Monday, rescue officials said the death toll had reached 27 and dozens of people were being housed in makeshift shelters following the building's collapse and the evacuation of nearby buildings over structural fears. 'I grew up in that building. I knew everyone who lived there,' said Imdad Hussain, 28, a fisherman who lost neighbours, childhood friends and seven members of his extended family. He is now sheltering with relatives, and family members are in mourning as they try to figure out what the future holds. 'We've lost our home, our people. I don't know how we'll start again,' he said.
Officials in Karachi, the capital of the southeastern province of Sindh, said the building had received multiple evacuation notices since 2023, including a final one in late June. Saeed Ghani, Provincial Minister of Sindh for Local Governments, said the Karachi commissioner - who oversees the city administration - had been tasked with inspecting 51 buildings identified as 'extremely dangerous' to prevent similar collapses.
Residents said the building in Lyari shook violently on Friday before collapsing in a cloud of dust. Rescue workers had been digging through the debris since Friday but declared the search over late on Sunday. They said about 100 residents from 12 families had been living in the building, and nearly 50 more families had been displaced after three neighbouring buildings were declared unsafe and evacuated.
Lakshmi, a school janitor who lived next door to the collapsed building, said her sister had lived in the building that came down and called moments before it fell to say it was shaking.
Her sister survived, but Lakshmi feared losing the gold she had left with her for safekeeping before her daughter's wedding. 'We got out with our lives, but everything else is gone, with no certainty about what is to come,' Lakshmi said. – Reuters
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kuwait Times
07-07-2025
- Kuwait Times
Pakistan's building crash survivors worry about future
KARACHI: Survivors of a building collapse that killed 27 people in the Pakistani city of Karachi were trying on Monday to come to terms with the loss of loved ones and their homes. The five-storey building collapsed on Friday in the overcrowded inner-city Lyari district where many working-class and poor families live in ageing apartment blocks. The site is now a tangle of twisted metal, shattered concrete and scattered belongings, schoolbooks, shoes and sewing machines. On Monday, rescue officials said the death toll had reached 27 and dozens of people were being housed in makeshift shelters following the building's collapse and the evacuation of nearby buildings over structural fears. 'I grew up in that building. I knew everyone who lived there,' said Imdad Hussain, 28, a fisherman who lost neighbours, childhood friends and seven members of his extended family. He is now sheltering with relatives, and family members are in mourning as they try to figure out what the future holds. 'We've lost our home, our people. I don't know how we'll start again,' he said. Officials in Karachi, the capital of the southeastern province of Sindh, said the building had received multiple evacuation notices since 2023, including a final one in late June. Saeed Ghani, Provincial Minister of Sindh for Local Governments, said the Karachi commissioner - who oversees the city administration - had been tasked with inspecting 51 buildings identified as 'extremely dangerous' to prevent similar collapses. Residents said the building in Lyari shook violently on Friday before collapsing in a cloud of dust. Rescue workers had been digging through the debris since Friday but declared the search over late on Sunday. They said about 100 residents from 12 families had been living in the building, and nearly 50 more families had been displaced after three neighbouring buildings were declared unsafe and evacuated. Lakshmi, a school janitor who lived next door to the collapsed building, said her sister had lived in the building that came down and called moments before it fell to say it was shaking. Her sister survived, but Lakshmi feared losing the gold she had left with her for safekeeping before her daughter's wedding. 'We got out with our lives, but everything else is gone, with no certainty about what is to come,' Lakshmi said. – Reuters
Kuwait Times
03-07-2025
- Kuwait Times
6 dead, 30 missing in Bali ferry sinking
BALI: This handout photo hows a rescue team moving a victim's body brought to shore earlier by local fishermen after a ferry sank on its way to the resort island of Bali, in Banyuwangi, East Java.--AFP JEMBRANA, Indonesia: Indonesian rescuers on Thursday temporarily halted a search for 30 people still missing after a ferry carrying 65 people sank near the island of Bali with the loss of six lives, the national search and rescue agency said. The KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya sank almost half an hour after leaving East Java province's Banyuwangi port on its way to Bali late on Wednesday, the agency said. The rescuers called off the search on Thursday evening due to a 'visibility problem', Nanang Sigit, the head of East Java rescue agency told Reuters, adding that 29 people had been rescued so far. He said the operation would resume on Friday morning, with more than 160 rescuers including police and military personnel deployed to conduct the search backed by four vessels and several helicopters. The boat was carrying 53 passengers and 12 crew members, as well as 22 vehicles, the national agency said. The ship was rated to carry 67 people and 25 vehicles, according to Indonesia's transport ministry. The search for the missing since Thursday morning had been hampered by strong currents and winds, the national rescue agency said. Video provided by national rescue agency Basarnas showed what appeared to be the body of one person being carried to shore from a fishing boat in calm seas. The passengers were all Indonesian, the transport ministry said. One of the survivors, Eko Toniansyah, 25, who lost his father, told Reuters that the ferry suddenly began sinking and tilting, causing panic among all the passengers, who scrambled for life vests. Another survivor, Bejo Santoso, 52, said strong waves had caused the ferry to sway around 30 minutes after leaving port. Dozens of people prepared to jump as the ferry began to sink, Santoso said. Ferries are a regular mode of transport in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, and accidents are common as lax safety standards often allow vessels to be overloaded without adequate life-saving equipment. A small ferry capsized in 2023 near Indonesia's Sulawesi island, killing at least 15 people. — Reuters
Kuwait Times
15-06-2025
- Kuwait Times
India plane crash kills 260
Amir sends condolences • Jet smashes into doctors' hostel • One passenger survives AHMEDABAD, India: At least 260 people were killed when an Air India plane bound for London with 242 people on board crashed minutes after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, authorities said, in the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade. The dead included people on the ground as the aircraft – headed for Gatwick Airport, south of the British capital – smashed into a medical college hostel during lunch hour. HH the Amir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah on Thursday sent a cable to Indian President Droupadi Murmu, offering sincere condolences and solace over the victims of the Air India crash. HH the Crown Prince Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah and HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah sent similar cables to Murmu. Kuwait's ministry of foreign affairs voiced sympathy and solidarity with India over the crash. In a press release, the ministry expressed sincere condolences and solace to the victims' families, the leadership, government and people of India over this painful tragedy. At least one passenger is known to have survived, police said, and the man told Indian media how he had heard a loud noise shortly after take-off. 'Approximately 260 have died. This includes some students as the plane crashed on the building where they were staying,' Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer, told Reuters. She said police found one survivor who was in seat 11A, next to an emergency exit, adding that there could be more survivors in hospital. 'Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed,' 40-year-old Ramesh Viswashkumar told the Hindustan Times, which showed a boarding pass for seat 11A in that name online. 'It all happened so quickly,' he told the paper from his hospital bed. 'When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me,' he said. 'Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital.' He said that his brother, Ajay, was seated in a different row on the plane. 'He was travelling with me and I can't find him anymore. Please help me find him,' he said. Ahmedabad police chief G S Malik said the bodies recovered could include both passengers and people killed on the ground. The dead included Vijay Rupani, the former chief minister of Gujarat state, of which Ahmedabad is the main city. Relatives had been asked to give DNA samples to identify the dead, state health secretary Dhananjay Dwivedi told reporters. Parts of the plane's body were scattered around the smoldering building into which it crashed. The tail of the plane was stuck on top of the building. The passengers included 217 adults, 11 children and two infants, a source told Reuters. Air India said 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian. 'One half of the plane crashed into the residential building where doctors lived with their families,' said Krishna, a doctor who did not give his full name. 'The nose and front wheel landed on the canteen building where students were having lunch,' he said. Krishna said he saw 'about 15 to 20 burnt bodies', while he and his colleagues rescued around 15 students. Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service. It was the first crash for the Dreamliner, which began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said. AHMEDABAD: Firefighters work at the site where Air India flight 171 crashed in a residential area near the airport on June 12, 2025. (Right) The tail of the plane is pictured at the medical college hostel it crashed into. - AFP photos Thursday's crash occurred just after the plane took off. TV channels showed the plane taking off over a residential area and then disappearing from the screen before a huge fireball could be seen rising into the sky from beyond the houses. 'My sister-in-law was going to London. Within an hour, I got news that the plane had crashed,' Poonam Patel, a relative of one of the passengers, told news agency ANI at the government hospital in Ahmedabad. Ramila, the mother of a student at the medical college, told ANI her son had gone to the hostel for his lunch break when the plane crashed. 'My son is safe, and I have spoken to him. He jumped from the second floor, so he suffered some injuries,' she said. According to air traffic control at Ahmedabad Airport, the aircraft departed at 1:39 pm (0809 GMT). It gave a Mayday call, signaling an emergency, but thereafter there was no response from the aircraft. Boeing said it was in contact with Air India and working to gather more information. Boeing shares fell 5 percent as the crash posed a major setback for the planemaker as its new CEO looks to rebuild trust following a series of safety and production challenges. Aircraft engine-maker GE Aerospace said that it would put a team together to go to India and analyze cockpit data, India's CNBC TV18 reported. The US National Transportation Safety Board said it would lead a team of US investigators travelling to India to help in the investigation. Britain was working with Indian authorities to urgently establish the facts around the crash and to provide support to those involved, the country's foreign office said. 'The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us,' Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X. 'It is heartbreaking beyond words.' Gujarat is Modi's home state. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said images emerging of the crash were 'devastating', while King Charles III said he was 'desperately shocked'. Ahmedabad Airport, which suspended all flight operations after the crash, said it was operational again but with limited flights. The airport is operated by India's Adani Group conglomerate. The last fatal plane crash in India, the world's third largest aviation market and its fastest growing, was in 2020 and involved Air India Express, the airline's low-cost arm. The airline's Boeing-737 overshot a 'table-top' runway in southern India, skidded and plunged into a valley, crashing nose-first into the ground and killing 21 people. The formerly state-owned Air India was taken over by Indian conglomerate Tata Group in 2022, and merged with Vistara - a joint venture between the group and Singapore Airlines – in 2024. India has suffered other fatal air crashes, including a 1996 disaster when two jets collided mid-air over New Delhi, killing nearly 350 people. In 2010, an Air India Express jet crashed and burst into flames at Mangalore airport in southwest India, killing 158 of the 166 passengers and crew on board. – Agencies
