ON Sept 14, 1976, the country’s media broke the shocking news that the day before (Sept 13) scores of people died when a six-storey building in Musa Lane, Lyari collapsed. By midnight, 80 dead and 47 injured persons had been recovered from the debris of the structure. They also included 10 occupants of an adjoining single-storey house that crashed under the weight of a portion of the ill-fated building. The tragedy, said to be the worst in the history of Karachi, happened when citizens were having their sehri. Rescue teams worked throughout the day to pull out victims from under the 10,000 maunds of concrete mass, but officials were of the view that the operation to clear the area might take days. Rescuers had to be careful while using their equipment as there was a possibility that some of those who were trapped under the rubble might be alive.
The rescue teams constituted of 250 Pakistan army and navy personnel, policemen, more than 150 firemen, a large number of engineers and workers representing the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC), the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) and the Karachi Port Trust (KPT). The KMC, KDA and the KPT were the agencies that had brought to the site cranes, excavators, dumpers and jack hammers to clear the rubble. A fleet of ambulances, too, raced back and forth carrying the dead bodies and the injured. Apart from Sindh Chief Minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, who visited the tragic scene as soon as he got to know about the situation, Local Bodies Minister Jam Sadiq Ali stayed there until late night, supervising the rescue operations.
On Sept 15, it was learnt that the death toll from the collapsed building had risen to a staggering 127. The number of the injured was now 49.
On Sept 16, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto paid a visit to Musa Lane in Lyari. He then went to Civil Hospital to meet the injured. Talking to them, Mr Bhutto said his government would do everything possible to alleviate the suffering of the people affected by the incident. On arrival at the hospital, the prime minister was received by the Provincial Health Minister, Abdul Waheed Katpar. Mr Bhutto ordered the doctor in charge of the ward to ensure that the patients were looked after well, and provided with the best possible facilities.
In a related story, on Sept 20, a report published in this newspaper revealed that the number of dangerous buildings in the city had increased at an alarming rate — out of the 114 works of construction declared dangerous by the KMC in the last 14 years, 90 posed a serious threat to the lives of more than 25,000 people living in or around them. Although the structures were declared not fit to stand in 1962, the department concerned could demolish only 24 of them. Nearly three dozen buildings could not be razed to the ground due to legal complications caused by the suits filed in civil courts either by their owners or occupants.
Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2026
