LAHORE: The Emergency Services Department commemorated the Baldia Town factory, Karachi, and Bund Road, Lahore Factory fire incidents in which 314 people lost their lives on 11th September 2012.
In this regard, a special event was organized at the Emergency Services Academy in remembrance of the victims of these twin fire emergencies of Lahore, Karachi, and New York. One minute silence was observed and special prayers were offered to pay tribute to the victims.
The Secretary Emergency Services Department, Dr. Rizwan Naseer briefed the under-training rescuers about these fire incidents and lessons learned were also shared with them for a better understanding of such difficult rescue and firefighting operations.
He stated these incidents are 9/11 of Pakistan when over 300 lives were lost in back-to-back incidents of fire at Baldia Town Karachi Garment Fire and Bund Road Lahore Factory Fire.
He said that fire Service of Rescue 1122 has saved losses worth over Rs650 billion by responding to over 217,000 fire incidents across the province through timely & professional fire fighting.
“A modern Fire Service in all districts of Punjab and the Service is continuously organizing fire safety awareness and training to the owners/employees of high rise/ high-risk buildings so that preventive measures of building safety as per building bylaws may be implemented which shall ultimately reduce the number of fire emergencies,” he said.
He appealed the business community and high rise building owners to ensure the implementation of Building Safety Regulation 2022 and do not risk their lives and investment to save a small amount spent on the installation of fire safety provisions.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023