Pakistan factory fires kill more than 310: officials
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KARACHI (AFP) - More than 310 people have perished in fires that gutted factories in Pakistan's two largest cities, in tragedies that prompted calls for an overhaul of poor industrial safety standards, officials said on Wednesday.
At least 280 people died at a garment factory in Karachi, in the worst blaze in decades to hit Pakistan's biggest city, just hours after 21 died at a shoe factory in Lahore, close to the Indian border.
Dozens of others were hurt in Karachi as they jumped out of windows from the four-storey building to escape the blaze that began Tuesday evening in a bid to save their lives, as sobbing relatives of trapped workers scuffled with police overnight.
"The death toll is 289. This is not final, search for more bodies continues," the city's top administration official, Mr Karachi Roshan Shaikh, told AFP as more victims were recovered. City police chief Iqbal Mehmood had earlier put the toll at 240.
