At least 25 workers died and several were injured when a fire broke out at a shoe factory in Lahore, on Tuesday 11 Septmeber.

The district coordination officer of Lahore, Noorul Amin Miangal, confirmed the death of the workers. They were all aged between 15 and 22.

“There were around 40 people working inside when the fire broke out. Most of them remained trapped inside and died from suffocation”, he said

Those who were injured were then taken to the local hospital. According to hospital sources three of them are in a critical situation.

The factory is located in a two-storey building in a highly populated area of Lahore, which is Pakistan’s second largest city.

“The building was actually built for residential purposes but later it was turned into a shoe factory. It was an illegal factory”, the district officer of Industry said.

The fire broke out from a generator and reached 15 chemical drums through a wire and then created havoc. Pakistan often faces blackouts, that is why many people use generators to provide electricity for their houses or their businesses

Ahmed Ali, a resident of the area said that at around 3.30pm he heard some blasts and later he saw the fire coming out from the factory.

“There is only one exit in the entire building and unfortunately that generator was placed right in front of that point. Most of the drums containing chemicals were also kept close to the generator. I have seen many of the workers fainted and burnt right in front of me. It was rather difficult to rescue them, so we made a big hole in the walls of the building to rescue those trapped inside. It took us about half an hour and by that time most of the people inside, including the factory owner and his son, had already died”, he said.

The factory employed over 100 workers, in different shifts. Rescue officials said that it took almost one hour to the fire-fighters to extinguish the fire.

“The factory has turned into a cage and most of the deaths could have been avoided, if only the building had another exit gate”, Karamat Ali, spokesperson of Rescue 1122 emergency service told Equal Times.

Lahore, headquarter of Pakistan largest province Punjab is well known as a dangerous place for the workers. In February 28 people died when a factory collapsed. 24 of them were young women.

“There are thousands of illegal factories in Lahore and working conditions are so bad. After that incident the Punjabi government allowed labour inspections after 8 years of ban.However, inspections have not started yet. Our government is not so serious in protecting labourers”, said Niaz Khan, general secretary of National Trade Union Federation Punjab.

Seven workers were killed in a factory in the Hafizabad district last June, while six died in a factory in Multan district in August.

Farooq Tariq, senior leader of Labour Party Pakistan, told Equal Times that workers in factories have no safety measures, no safety kits, and no exit doors to escape in case of fire.

"The private factories have become concentration camps and workers are not considered human being any more", he said

Officials of the Punjabi government reassured that after the factory collapse in February a joint committee of different departments was set up to search for illegal factories located in residential areas of the town.

“So far, not a single meeting of the committee has convened”, a high official of the Punjabi labour department said on condition of anonymity.

According to Nadeem Akhtar, deputy director of Punjab labour department, the inspectors have not been given the powers to prosecute the owners. So, inspections would not be effective anyway.

In fact, on the same day, another fire broke out in a garment factory in Karachi, burning at least 30 workers.