REUTERS, Karachi

Firefighters in Pakistan’s largest city were fighting to extinguish a massive blaze yesterday that has killed six people and reduced parts of a shopping mall to rubble in Karachi’s historic downtown.

Videos showed flames rising from the building as firefighters laboured through the night to stop the fire from spreading in the dense business district. The fire erupted on Saturday night, with rescue services receiving a call at 10:38 pm (1738 GMT) reporting that ground floor shops at Gul Plaza were ablaze.

“When we arrived, the fire from the ground floor had spread to the upper floors, and almost the entire building was already engulfed in flames,” Rescue 1122 spokesperson Hassanul Haseeb Khan told Reuters.