Karachi stampede kills up to 20 women, children

[Jana]

Karachi stampede kills up to 20 women, children

KARACHI: A stampede killed up to 20 impoverished women and children, crushed in a stairwell and alley, when charity workers handed out free flour in Karachi, officials said.

Dozens of women and girls from poor families converged on the first-floor office of a small charity in the crowded neighbourhood of Khori Garden in the hot afternoon of Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk.

The tragedy came four days after a stampede killed five girls at a state school in New Delhi, the capital of Pakistan's rival India.

'We have so far received 20 bodies of women and girls while the injured are more than 30,' Amin Khan, an official at Civil Hospital Karachi, told AFP.

City police chief Wasim Ahmed said at least 18 women and children died in the stampede with dozens of others injured.

'The deaths were caused by suffocation and the stampede in one of the most congested localities of Khori Garden, where a charity was distributing free flour among hundreds of women and children during Ramadan,' he added.

Women clad in black burkas sobbed and wailed as ambulances screeched through the streets, ferrying the bodies and injured to hospital, where panicked relatives searched for their loved ones and dead bodies lay covered in sheets.

'I have lost my little daughter,' cried Karima in hospital. 'I wanted a bag of flour for my family and my greed punished me so gravely,' she sobbed.

A private security guard responsible for making sure the women formed an orderly queue baton charged the women when they became impatient with the long wait, said police and witnesses.

'The women got scared and tried to save themselves... which caused the stampede,' said local police official Hashmat Ali.

Injured Salma Qadir said the women wanted to get their rations quickly but were beaten by a guard.

'The women scared and tried to turn back, which scared others and resulted in a stampede,' she told AFP.

Several dozen women's shoes, sandals and slippers were left lying on the road outside the distribution place in Khori Garden, a warren of narrow lanes and side streets ill equipped for large crowds, an AFP reporter said.

'Fortunately, my mother and sister have survived and I am searching for their shoes and scarves here,' said teenager Mohammad Kashif.

Shops in the area closed as a sign of mourning after the tragedy as women and children wailed outside the crowded emergency ward of the Civil Hospital Karachi where bodies and the injured were transported.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered an immediate investigation into the incident and medical treatment for the injured in Karachi, a teeming city that is home to an estimated 14 million people.

In Karachi in April 2006, the country's worst stampede in recent history killed 29 women and children at a religious gathering to mark the anniversary of the Prophet Mohammed's birth.

Officials said the 2006 stampede was triggered when a girl fell down stairs as women left a gathering that was organised by Dawat-i-Islami, a moderate Sunni Muslim party, at its mosque in the city's eastern district. -AFP

[Jana]

fokkkkkkkkk the politicians, rulers.
innn ki tau

People are starving and these fkn rats are sucking blood looting the country

[EmO GiRl]

Puck u all politicans & black market dealers
A$$ h__, Ku***

Ppl are going to die while having the basic necessities of life
No Flour, NO sugar, No electricity, No economy, No Vision...
Now they are ordering the God Damn investigation, wait for the ones to be killed order investigations & then forget & wait for another incident for 'investigation' to happen again & the cycle continues unbroken...

[fox]

and jana worst part is just 1lac rupees for the victims Mustafa kamala and ishrata busy in parties they are responsible for the deaths.

[xeric]

It's terrible.

You seek free flour and you get crushed under others feet.

i am unable to decide should i blame the ones who were providing the poor people with free flour bags, or should i curse the guard who all started this, or may be i should ask the govt that why would there be a need that people have to feed on free rations!!

[Jana]

And top of that, our prez says that he can not intevene into sugar and other hoarding issues.

Someone should check the Ifftar parties at PM and other offices :( seems there some grand wedding of some infulential's son or daughter

[Jana]

Originally Posted by xeric

It's terrible.

You seek free flour and you get crushed under others feet.

i am unable to decide should i blame the ones who were providing the poor people with free flour bags, or should i curse the guard who all started this, or may be i should ask the govt that why would there be a need that people have to feed on free rations!!

They have arrested the man who was distributing free food to poor. Now this is what you are going to see from impotent leaders of this country.

Curse the Government.

[EmO GiRl]

Originally Posted by Jana

They have arrested the man who was distributing free food to poor

Neke gale par gae us becahre ke...
On one side gov dont provides even basic necessities, but if some one provides it he's doomed...
These C*** sitting in Islu must smell the coffee & look outside their palaces, Pakistan is not restricted to their bloody Palaces & Dubai..

[batmannow]

jaab ata choron ki aur , sugar choron ki hukumat ho gi tu aysa hi hoo gaa!

[Imran2006g]

PPP ka Ghurbat Mukao program...

[Developereo]

Reminds me of this segment from an old article:
Mansoor Ijaz on Benazir Bhutto: Idealism, to Debasement, to Return, to Tragedy Flaggman’s Canada

I remember asking her in a meeting in Islamabad at the prime minister’s residence in early 1996 as I presented her with evidence of her family’s corruption why she didn’t go and spend three or four days a week living in the villages of Pakistan with its suffering people so she could show her commitment to healing their pain. Her answer was typically imperious — “prime ministers don’t do that…”

[GLOBAL HAWK]

Shouldn't have happened!!
This indeed is a sad news. RIP citizens

[WebMaster]

YouTube - Stampede Kills 18 in Pakistan

YouTube - Stampede Kills 18 in Pakistan

[vsdoc]

Very sad to hear about this. Our condolences.

Doc