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Article

6 Jan 2015

Author:
AFP

Pakistan: Few lessons learned two years on from Karachi factory fire

More than two years after a fire tore through a Karachi clothing factory, killing 255 workers, no-one has been prosecuted over the catastrophe, one of the deadliest industrial accidents in Pakistani history...The abandoned hulk of the Ali Enterprises factory, which supplied cheap clothes to Western retailers, now stands as a monument to a disaster many would rather forget...A judicial probe into the blaze was damning, pointing to a lack of emergency exits, poor safety training for workers, the packing in of machinery and the failure of government inspectors to spot any of these faults...Two years later the victims' families have received a total of $1.67 million in immediate compensation paid by the factory owners and the German company KIK, which bought much of the production. Negotiations are still ongoing for long-term benefits... murder case was registered against the factory owners, but it has never come to trial...Before its devastating fire, the Ali Enterprises factory was given a safety certificate, but the document was fake, issued by a company suspected of fraudulently "inspecting" around 100 Pakistani factories.