KARACHI - Fire in cargo area at Karachi Airport spoiled shipments worth billions of rupees which comprises on medicines, cell phones, accessories, material for road construction and other perishable items.
Gerry’s Dnata warehouse was totally destroyed during fire and we have lost two of our shipments worth $42,000 and $25,000 each. However, most of the batches were insured, said Shah Rukh Khanzada, a clearing forwarding agent at cargo area of the airport while talking to The Nation.  He said a cell phone company lost 150 shipments that was destroyed in fire which engulf in Jerry’s shed after terrorist attack. A single shipment contains different numbers of pieces, he added.  We mostly spend our time in this area of the airport because of our nature of jobs. We didn’t expect this kind of terrorist attack. At the time of incident, we were near to the concern area and later became relaxed after the successful operation conducted by the law enforcers
Shah Rukh said the worst thing was the lost of precious lives who burnt alive in the depot. We never cared about shipments, instead whenever we get the chance to enter into godowns, we tried our best to save stuck people.  He said that the Clearing Forwarding Agents Association is staging camp in front of Gerry’s warehouse on Wednesday (today) to announce their strategy for future.  Mohammad Idrees President Karachi Electronic Dealers Association told The Nation that a large number of mobile shipments of Karachi’s cell phone dealers worth Rs 2.5 billion every time stored in this area.
Usually pharmaceutical, large quantity of Paan importing from different countries, engineering equipment and cell phone accessories were the main items which stored in this depot, he added.
He mentioned that most of imported medicines consist of injections used for different treatments were stored in the cooling area as per the requirement and are not live saving medicines.
Earlier, KEDA President urged the government to announce compensation for businessmen. He said no announcement has been made by the government to compensate the likely losses which have triggered anxiety amongst concerned businessmen.
He said that in order to avoid such incidents in future, the government must install scanners at all the entry/ exit points of the city in order to stop influx of explosives in the financial hub of Pakistan.