Pakistan: 10 dead, 13 wounded, in Karachi ‘sewer gas blast’ hours before nation hosts OIC foreign ministers
- Initial investigations suggest the explosion was caused by leakage from gas pipeline; explosives experts examining the site
- Pakistan due to host meeting of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Islamabad; group to discuss Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation
“At least 10 people have lost their lives in the blast,” said Waqas Ahmad, a spokesperson for the city’s police. A further 13 people were wounded.
Another police spokesman, Sohail Jokhio, said the blast was apparently caused when something ignited gas that had accumulated in the sewer beneath a bank building in the Shershah neighbourhood of the port city.
Jokhio said it was not yet clear what ignited the gas but a team of explosives experts had been summoned to investigate.
Sabir Memon, a doctor at the trauma centre of a Karachi hospital, said that at least six more people were in critical condition and being treated.
The bank building collapsed due to the explosion. Jokhio said windows were shattered in nearby buildings and a parked vehicle nearby was also badly damaged.
Many sewage channels in the city have been covered, mostly illegally, by constructing concrete structures over them.