KARACHI: At least five people, including women and children, fell into an open drain in Karachi’s Korangi district on Sunday, said rescue officials.
The incident occurred in Korangi’s Mehran Town as the people were returning from an event when they slipped into the uncovered drain.
After being informed, emergency teams rushed to the scene and rescued all five affected individuals.
Three of the victims were found unconscious and were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, rescue officials said.
Open manholes claimed the lives of over two dozen people, mostly children, last year, as the city government failed to cover all the manholes in the metropolis.
Last month, the body of a three-year-old boy who fell into an open manhole late at night near Nipa flyover in Karachi’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal area was recovered after 14 hours.
The child had gone missing after slipping into the uncovered manhole near a departmental store. Rescue teams had located the toddler’s body in a drain approximately one kilometre from the incident site.
Amid mounting criticism over rising manhole deaths in the metropolis, Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab had said that the issue of “open manholes” should not be viewed through a “political lens”.
“If someone has removed a gutter’s cover and placed it on the side, this issue should not be politicised,” the mayor had said. –Agencies
