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25-01-2026
By SJA Jafri
KARACHI: The death toll in a fire which engulfed a shopping centre in Pakistan has climbed to 71, police have confirmed.
Police say 77 people are currently reported as missing by their families following the fire at Gul Plaza, in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi, on Saturday evening but the scale of the damage following the blaze which took more than 24 hours to put out has slowed rescue efforts, as authorities comb the remains of the 6,500sq m (70,000 sq ft) complex.
While some of the bodies found are only partial remains, authorities had been able to count 67 skulls, the deputy commissioner of police told PMI. The process to identify the bodies continues, with 19 people identified so far.
Gul Plaza had housed some 1,200 shops, spread across multiple floors. It is wedding season in Karachi, often a particularly busy time of year for shoppers.
While the cause of the fire is still unknown, witnesses earlier told media that a lack of working fire exits and the density of shoppers and stalls crammed into the building exacerbated the disaster.
Shop owner Rehan Faisal recounted how it only took about “five to seven minutes” for everything to “burn before our eyes”.
“Many customers and shopkeepers were coming up… and saying there was a fire downstairs. I was just beginning to comprehend the situation when the shop owner told me to lock up and get out,” he told media.
With the facility due to close soon, most of the gates of the shopping centre were locked, witnesses said.
Senior police official Syed Asad Raza told media that all but three of the centre’s 16 exits were locked.
4 days ago, a massive fire that tore through a shopping centre in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, has killed 21 people, including a firefighter and rescuers are racing to find dozens more still missing.
It took firefighters more than 24 hours to put out the blaze in Gul Plaza that started on Saturday night. The building housed 1,200 stores and spanned 8,000 sq. m (86,111 sq. ft.).
Parts of the building have collapsed, with officials saying the debris and lack of ventilation were hampering rescue efforts.
“Almost the entire building was already engulfed in flames”, by the time rescuers arrived at the site on Saturday night, local emergency services said.
Sixty people have been reported missing by their families, who have gathered outside what remains of the centre, waiting anxiously for news of their loved ones. Administrators for the city have set up a desk to register the names and details of the missing.
Smoke was still billowing from what remains of the Gul Plaza building on Sunday morning. Much of it has collapsed and there are concerns it could collapse further.
Hassan Khan, a spokesperson for Rescue 1122 in Karachi, told media, the fire spread rapidly because of the presence of flammable materials such as plastic foam, cloth, and perfume in the building.
By Sunday evening, various parts of the Gul Plaza were charred and reduced to rubble. Rescuers told media that the whole building could come down.
Cranes have been deployed to shift what remains of the partially collapsed building, in the hope of recovering more bodies. However, rescuers are still waiting for the structure to sufficiently cool down so they can conduct a thorough search.
At least 26 of those reported missing were last seen inside the building, according to the locations of their phones, a police official told PMI.
