‘Dangling web of wires’: Bushra Ansari calls for better electric safety in wake of Gul Plaza tragedy
Actor Bushra Ansari joined Karachiites in mourning the loss of life from the devastating fire that gutted the city’s iconic Gul Plaza, sharing her views in a since-deleted Instagram video. She said the building “wasn’t just a shopping centre, it was a tradition,” where people went “when they were shopping to fulfil their dreams”.
Having been to the plaza when buying things for her daughters’ weddings — an experience familiar to many in the City of Lights — Ansari recalled the “dangling web of wires” spread between shops with a number of “unsafe connections”.
She said she wasn’t going to get into the debate around who was responsible or who was negligent, instead, what she wanted to know was what Karachi’s electricity distribution company was doing to prevent electrical fires.
The actor said she had seen similar ramshackle setups in other busy markets across the city, including the Mehboob and Jama cloth markets near Gul Plaza itself, electronics market in Saddar and Meena Bazaar. She asked why the distributor didn’t act to mitigate the threat to people’s safety from improper wiring there.
Ansari asked the distribution company to come forward, inspect the wiring in all such buildings and make sure everything is safe and in order. “It would be very unfortunate if we don’t learn from this incident,” she remarked.
While no definitive cause has been determined so far, Sindh Inspector General of Police Javed Alam Odho told reporters on Sunday the fire appeared to have originated in a circuit breaker. While a search operation continues in the partially-collapsed building, 61 deaths have been confirmed so far after the remains of 31 people were found in a shop on the plaza’s mezzanine floor on Wednesday.
The actor’s concerns are especially relevant after a major fire hit Saddar’s electronics market in June, damaging a mixed-use building. Firefighters at the scene reported difficulties extinguishing the blaze due to a lack of fire exits in the structure. It took over half a dozen fire trucks over several hours to eventually douse the flames.
Electric fires are a common occurrence in Karachi. A couple of days after the fire at electronics market, a blaze broke out at Millennium Mall. The inferno started as an electrical fault and gutted the building. Over a dozen fire tenders spent hours battling the fire.
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