By Ariba Shahid and Mohammed Waseem
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Pakistani firefighters on Wednesday retrieved the bodies of up to 25 people from the debris of a shopping mall fire in Karachi, taking the death toll to around 50.
The port city’s largest fire in more than a decade broke out late on Saturday and quickly spread through the sprawling Gul Plaza shopping complex, famous for its 1,200 family-owned stores selling wedding clothes, toys, crockery and other goods.
“We have found 20 to 25 dead bodies, or you call them remains,” Deputy Commissioner Javed Nabi Khoso told reporters. He said the remains had been taken to a hospital for DNA matching.
Due to the difficulties in identification, he said it was difficult to give a precise update on the death toll, which stood at 29 on Tuesday.
A small crowd paying tribute to the victims lit candles near the site, with some holding images of those presumed killed.
Firefighters had been battling the inferno inside the mall until Tuesday. By the time it was brought under control, Gul Plaza was reduced to a pile of ash and debris.
A total of 84 people had been registered missing, according to a state-run rescue service. Police have said most of the missing are feared dead, meaning the toll could rise still further.
“It is a doomsday scenario,” said shopkeeper Rehmat Khan after seeing inside what was left of the plaza. He said around 18 to 20 people had been in the shop, including six staff, when the fire erupted in the mall. All of them were missing, he said.
The blaze was Karachi’s most deadly since an industrial site went up in flames in 2012, killing more than 260 people.
(Reporting by Ariba Shahid and Mohammed Waseem; Writing by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Alison Williams)
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