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Karachi Pakistan Factory Fire

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.

Karachi Pakistan
Factory Fire

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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