LAHORE: Five people died of suffocation and one suffered injuries af ter a blaze broke out in a bakery near Barkat Market in Garden Town on Tuesday morning.
Erupted at 6:31am, the fire spread so steadily that dozens of people living in several apartments at the upper portions of the sevenstorey building Garden Heights got trapped.
Initialreportssuggested thatthe Hre Ersteruptedin the bakeryand later spread to two floors.
Several vehicles of the Rescue 1122 rushed to the site followed bya police contingent.
An official said rescuers had to face a huge amount of dense smoke in seven storeys. He said the rescuersfoundithardtogetaccesstothe trapped people as the owner of the plaza was non-cooperative (police later took him into custody).
The official said the first responding team of Rescue 1122 used self-contained breathing apparatus and made their entry into the building.
As soon as they got access to the rented quarters, they found five people lying dead in various rooms.
They all were working as employees at different business outlets in the surrounding areas, particularly Barkat Market, the official said.
The firefighters continued with their efforts and contained the fire from spreading to major portion of the building.
It took them two hours to extin-guish the Ere, he said adding that most of the trapped people were rescued using aerial platform and turntableladders (TLs).
Sajid, who was among those trapped in the building, said he along his two roommates immediately rushed outside shortly after they found dense smoke entering their room.
He said the corridors of the plaza were so much narrow that they could hardly find exit amid many other people to leave it for safe place.
Some of them managed to reach the rooftop while several others moved towards the windows seekinghelp ofthe rescuers, Sajid said.
A rescuer said the entire building didn’t have fire-safety facilities.
Even no smoke detector and fireextinguishing equipment were installed at any portion of the plaza.
The building had no emergencyexit and fire alarm to help the trapped people in such an extraordinary situation which is no less than a criminal offence, he lamented.
Operations DIG Dr Haider Ashraf said plaza owner Aleem Khan was taken into custody after some complaints of serious nature surfaced during the incident.
He said the bodies were shifted to the city morgue for autopsy.
The deceased have been identified as Shahbaz (25), Shahid (40), Talib (30) and Shakeel (15). One is yet to be identified.
The DIG, however, denied reports about the injury to any other living in the building, saying the deaths occurred due to suffocation.
The cause [of the fire] could not be ascertained but rescuers suspect a short circuit.