Survivors of a building collapse that killed 27 people in Baghdadi area of Karachi’s Lyari were trying on Monday to come to terms with the loss of loved ones and their homes.
The five-storey building collapsed on Friday in the overcrowded inner-city Lyari district where many working-class and poor families live in ageing apartment blocks. The site is now a tangle of twisted metal, shattered concrete and scattered belongings, schoolbooks, shoes and sewing machines.
On Monday, rescue officials said the death toll had reached 27 and dozens of people were being housed in makeshift shelters following the building’s collapse and the evacuation of nearby buildings over structural fears.
“I grew up in that building. I knew everyone who lived there,” said Imdad Hussain, 28, a fisherman who lost neighbours, childhood friends and seven members of his extended family.
He is now sheltering with relatives, and family members are in mourning as they try to figure out what the future holds. “We’ve lost our home, our people. I don’t know how we’ll start again,” he said.
Officials in Karachi, the capital of the Sindh province, said the building had received multiple evacuation notices since 2023, including a final one in late June.
Saeed Ghani, Provincial Minister of Sindh for Local Governments, said the Karachi commissioner — who oversees the city administration — had been tasked with inspecting 51 buildings identified as “extremely dangerous” to prevent similar collapses.
Building shook violently
Residents said the building in Lyari, which has been home to generations of working-class families from minority and migrant backgrounds, shook violently on Friday before collapsing in a cloud of dust.
Rescue workers had been digging through the debris since Friday but declared the search over late on Sunday.
They said about 100 residents from 12 families had been living in the building, and nearly 50 more families had been displaced after three neighbouring buildings were declared unsafe and evacuated.
Lakshmi, a school janitor who lived next door to the collapsed building, said her sister had lived in the building that came down and called moments before it fell to say it was shaking.
Her sister survived, but Lakshmi feared losing the gold she had left with her for safekeeping before her daughter’s wedding.
“We got out with our lives, but everything else is gone, with no certainty about what is to come,” Lakshmi said.
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The search and rescue operation in Lyari’s Bhagdadi area has concluded after nearly three days, an official said on Sunday, with 27 dying from the tragic building collapse.
“The rescue operation continued for 60 hours and is now complete,” Assistant Commissioner Shehryar Habib told reporters, vowing to kick-start an operation against all buildings declared unfit in the area.
The five-storey residential building had collapsed on Friday, prompting a large-scale rescue operation. The last rites of 20 people have been performed as authorities have vowed action against those responsible for the tragic incident.
The incident, though tragic, is not an isolated case, as Karachi has seen a recurring pattern of building collapses over the past several years.
“Operations against all buildings declared unfit in Lyari will begin from tomorrow,” Habib announced. He said that three buildings surrounding the one that collapsed have also been declared dangerous.”All three have now been evacuated and will be sealed,” he said. According to the assistant commissioner, over 50 dangerous buildings have been identified across Karachi South.
“Residents evacuated from these structures are currently staying with relatives. Authorities are in the process of formulating a strategy to relocate residents of all unsafe buildings to safer accommodations.”
Twenty-six bodies — including nine women, 15 men, and a ten-year-old boy and a one-and-a-half-year-old girl — were recovered from the rubble, while another person succumbed to their wounds during treatment.
High-level committee
The Sindh government formed a high-level committee to investigate the incident, tasked with submitting a report by Monday.
The Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) revealed that the collapsed structure — which housed over 40 people in 20 apartments — was 30 years old and had been previously marked unsafe.
The authority claimed it had issued formal evacuation notices two years ago, and the latest was served on 25 June 2025. It said it had also sent notices to K-Electric and the water board to disconnect utility services — but neither the connections were cut nor was the building vacated.
The incident also sheds light on the existing threat posed by buildings already declared unsafe and unfit for habitation by the SBCA. The number of such buildings stands at 578 in Karachi, with 456 of them being in the District South alone.
Other districts also face risk: Central (66), Keamari (23), Korangi (14), East (13), Malir (4), and West (2).
