Death toll from Pakistani factory collapse reaches 44

Nearly five days after a Pakistani factory collapsed, the death toll has reached 44, officials said yesterday, in one of the country’s deadliest industrial accidents in recent years.

More than 100 injured survivors were pulled from the rubble after the factory collapsed on Wednesday night, but no one had been recovered alive since Friday night, said Dr Zulfiqar Ahmad, executive district health officer in Lahore.

It was unclear how many people had been in the building when it collapsed, he said, though survivors estimated some 150-200 people.

“Now we are using sniffer dogs to try to find people,” he said. “Only the ground floor is left . . . It will take another day to clear all the rubble after which we will be in a better position to tell the final death toll . . . We fear it will increase.”

Survivors said the owner of the factory, 20km from Lahore, was adding a new floor to the building and had ignored his contractor’s advice and workers’ pleas to stop construction after cracks appeared following last month’s 7.5 magnitude earthquake. The owner was among those killed. –(Reuters)