Survivors of the Gul Plaza fire and rescue personnel who carried out an initial internal inspection of the damaged building repeatedly mentioned that many routes were locked. To determine which routes had been locked, the building’s layout plan was sought. When the plan was reviewed, it showed the basement designated as parking; however, in reality, the basement had been converted into shops and made part of the market, while the parking had been shifted to the roof of the building.
The plan showed Gul Plaza as having 1,021 shops, whereas in reality more than 1,200 shops had been established.
A view of the damaged Gul Plaza Market building after a fire in Karachi. Photo: X
Survivors of the fire said they were trying to somehow reach the balcony floors of Gul Plaza so they could be safe from the fire and smoke, but the routes leading upward had grill doors that were locked. Some of these doors were broken open by people who managed to escape outside, but most of the doors could not be broken.
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Ali Mehr worked at shop number 50. Three of his colleagues have been missing since Saturday night. Ali said that shopkeepers at least had some idea of the exit routes, but shoppers were running around in panic trying to save themselves. He said he helped some women get out of the building, but his colleagues may have been caught in the fire.
With exits locked, how could people, already panicked and trying to save their lives, break open the locks?
Ali said he exited the building from the mosque side. This is the same location from where, on Monday, rescue teams recovered the bodies of more than twelve people.
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It has been learned that after shifting the parking to the upper level, Gul Plaza’s management had created an alternative route of stairs from the upper floors downwards. These stairs were connected to every floor and were used by shopkeepers to reach their vehicles. However, on the day of the incident, all of these routes were locked.
Emergency personnel remove human remains, following a massive fire that broke out in the Gul Plaza Shopping Mall in Karachi, Pakistan, January 19, 2026. PHOTO: REUTERS
Another route to reach the upper floors was a ramp built alongside Rampa Plaza, which was used by vehicles to go up and down. Unfortunately, this ramp was blocked due to the collapse of part of the building, as a result of which people could neither exit the building nor reach the upper floors. The building’s parking area remained safe from the fire, from where rescue teams, on the night between Monday and Tuesday, lowered vehicles with the help of cranes and handed them back to their owners.
A woman is comforted as she mourns six missing family members who were there shopping for a wedding ceremony, following a massive fire that broke out in the Gul Plaza Shopping Mall in Karachi, Pakistan, January 19, 2026.PHOTO: REUTERS
Rescue personnel said that some of the bodies were found in a manner suggesting that the victims first died due to suffocation and were then engulfed by the fire. Firefighters said that if the routes had been open, the number of deaths would have been lower.
Since the fire broke out on Saturday night, 28 bodies have so far been recovered from the burned building. Rescue operations are ongoing, and there is a fear that the death toll may rise further once the debris of the collapsed structure is removed and the search operation is expanded.
An important meeting regarding the Gul Plaza tragedy was held under the chairmanship of the Karachi commissioner. During the meeting, the deputy commissioner and officials from the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) and Karachi Metropolitan Corporation gave briefings on the possible causes of the incident and the relief operations. The Karachi commissioner will present a report on the incident to Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah.
Smoke billows from Karachi’s Gul Plaza following a massive fire. Photo: IN
Although the fire at Gul Plaza has been brought under control, smoke is still rising from different parts of the building, and flames occasionally flare up. Rescue teams have used heavy machinery to break through the walls of the ground floor to create an entry route, and search operations are now ongoing on the ground floor and in the basement. Rescue personnel say that due to the intensity of the fire, the internal temperature of the building has risen significantly, making rescue work difficult.
Fire fighters and rescue workers perform a cooling operation amid the debris after a massive fire at a shopping mall in Karachi on January 19, 2026.AFP
Senior journalist Raza Hasan said that in his career in crime reporting, he had covered countless fire incidents, but after every incident, the matter cooled down following routine statements and the suspension of a few officials. He believed the same would happen in this case as well, calling it an example of the “insensitivity of our institutions”.
He questioned whether SBCA regulations were not being violated in this building. “Gul Plaza had neither fire-fighting equipment nor emergency exits. Officials of government institutions regularly take bribes from such buildings and allow all kinds of violations.”
Hasan further said that even if fire brigade personnel could not be trained to international standards, they should at least be trained according to Asian standards.
“The staff of this department do not even know how many types of fires there are, which chemical should be used for which type of fire, or which fires should be extinguished using foam.”