Go through fire again: PNSC building badly damaged

A huge fire which broke out on the fourth floor of the 15-storey Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) building, facing the Arabian Sea, rendered at least seven floors of the building in shambles. The conflagration, with flames visible on some upper floors, started at around 2:30 pm on Sunday, and took several hours to come under control till the filing of this report.
However, Ihtesham-ud-Din, Chief Fire Officer of the City Fire Service, said the blaze would be completely brought under control by Monday morning. "Almost 70 percent of the fire has been controlled, and we have only 30 percent work to do, which is likely to be finished till tomorrow morning", he said.
The fire completely gutted seven floors (from 4 to 10) of the building while floors from 1 to 3 were been saved by the fire fighters, he added.
"The recurrence of fire on Sunday makes the matter suspicious and likelihood of act of sabotage can not be ruled out. We would probe the incident keeping this point in mind", Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Babar Khan Ghauri told Business Recorder at the spot.
About likely cause of fire and extent of damage in financial terms, the minister said: "Nothing can be said at this stage about either the cause of fire or the cost of damage, as our top most priority is to extinguish the fire as soon as possible".
However, majority of the people on the spot said that electrical short-circuit was a possible cause of the fire. The blaze was the third in the building as about six months back, on February 18, 2007, also a Sunday, a huge fire had burnt four floors of the building, following a previous one in 1972, which had left the 11th floor completely destroyed under mysterious circumstances.
Sunday's fire initially broke out on the 4th floor but soon rose up to the 10th floor of the PNSC headquarters located at Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan Road leaving the entire office infrastructure destroyed and precious records completely gutted.
Some 26 fire tenders and four snorkels, including three from the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) and one from the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) and the rest from all over the city's fire-fighting teams immediately reached the place of incident.
Babar Ghauri was accompanied by officials from various government and semi-government institutions, which included Director General Ports and Shipping Rear Admiral Syed Afzal, City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal, City Naib Nazim Nasrin Jalil, Chairman KPT Vice Admiral Ahmed Hayat, Keamari Town Nazim Humayoun Mohammad Khan and others from the PNSC.
It being holiday (Sunday) there was no loss of life as all offices in the building were closed, and the guards were safely evacuated. But one person, who had reached the rooftop, was subsequently airlifted by a chopper of Pakistan Navy.
"There has been no casualty, while efforts are on to extinguish the fire which looks uncontrollable due to the strong wind which is hindering the operation," the minister said.
When asked if the government could be blamed for its negligence towards a strong and efficient fire-fighting system, the minister acknowledged, and said "The point is valid, and there should be more improvement in the system".
The blame game was also witnessed between the city government and KPT as both City Nazim Mustafa Kamal and KPT Chairman Ahmed Hayat refused to accept that it was the duty of their respective institutions to deal with the fire at PNSC building.
"This is well known that the area is controlled by the KPT and they have the responsibility to control the fire we are here just to support them for which we are offering the best of our abilities", said the city nazim.
On the other hand, KPT chairman said: "KPT is responsible for fires in the port area only, and any incident occurring outside falls under the jurisdiction of city government".
The city nazim, soon after his arrival at the spot saw his staffers red when he was told that one of the city government snorkel was not working properly. Director General Ports and Shipping Rear Admiral Syed Afzal on the occasion said that nothing could be said about the cause of fire until an investigation was conducted to probe the matter.
The affected floors housed various departments of the PNSC and offices of Habib Bank Limited, Angro Chemicals, Meezan Bank, OLPERS and All Well, Mega and Inn etc.