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Death toll of Pakistan's ship-breaking yard explosion rises to 18

Xinhua, November 2, 2016 Adjust font size:

Rescue workers on Wednesday recovered four more bodies from the ship breaking yard in Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province, bringing the death toll of Tuesday's explosion to 18, officials said.

Akbar Harifal, home secretary of Balochistan, said that over 50 people were injured and several others went missing in the explosion, which happened when laborers were trying to dismantle a ship by using gas welding at the Gadani ship-breaking yard of Hub, a district located in Balochistan.

Local Urdu TV channel Samaa reported that oil from the ship's tank was not fully drained and the explosion happened when the laborers tried to dismantle the ship near the tank with a fuel capacity of 2,200 ton, causing huge fire which engulfed the whole ship.

Officials said that over 100 people were working on the ship when the explosion happened, and some of them managed to survive by jumping in the sea and swimming to the shore while several others are still missing whose search is underway.

Provincial Disaster Management Authority and the National Disaster Management Authority along with rescue teams of Navy, fire brigade department and other welfare organizations participated in the rescue operation.

Faisal Edhi, the head of Edhi workers, taking part in the rescue work at the ship, said that one part of the ship is still engulfed by fire, and the death toll is feared to rise as more bodies can be recovered from the ship or the sea, after the complete extinguishing of the fire.

Quoting officials, Express News reported that the fire broke out at 9:00 a.m. local time on Tuesday, but firefighters had to wait for the fire to die out as they lacked the foam required to douse it.

Police said that eight explosions took place at the yard.

The injured people had been shifted to a nearby hospital, and several of them are said to be in critical condition.

The Gadani ship breaking yard workers called a three-day strike in protest against the deadly conflagration.

The country's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed sorrow over the incident and directed hospital authorities to provide best possible medical treatment to the injured people.

Located some 45 km northwest of Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi, the Gadani ship-breaking yard is the world's third largest ship breaking yard. The yard consists of 132 ship-breaking plots located across a 10 km-long beachfront at Gadani. Endit