From: The Daily Mail

My comments in bold at the end of the article.

More than 280 workers die after huge fire in factory 'that supplies clothes to Gap stores in the UK'

• At least 25 workers died in shoe factory in Lahore
• Hours later, a fire in a garment factory in Karachi claimed 289 lives
• Karachi plant 'supplied clothes to Selfridges and Gap stores in the UK'
• Workers trapped in basement, others forced to jump from roof or third-floor windows

• Flames ripped through a garment factory in Karachi, killing 289 people. Hours earlier, a fire killed at least 25 workers in a shoe factory in Lahore.

Last night it was claimed in Pakistan that the factory in Karachi supplied clothes to Selfridges and Gap outlets in the UK.
A relative of one of the owners of the factories said many other clothes made there ended up in the UK.

Blaze: Firefighters extinguish flames at the garment factory in Karachi, said to 'supply clothes to Gap stores in the UK'

Rescue: The fire crews attempt to save workers within the Karachi factory

Grief: A woman mourns the loss of at least one relative outside the Karachi factory

The factory is about 3000 square yards which had four main gates. Three of which were closed after a theft in the factory.
All the four owners of the factory are still at large. The items of the company were also exported to states of Northern America.
Many women and children were thought to be among the dead in Karachi, where a lot of the victims were burned alive.
Others suffocated in the four-storey building, which had metal grilles on many of the windows.
Workers have revealed how they jumped from third floor windows to escape the blaze at a garment factory in Karachi, where many victims were trapped in a basement.
In Lahore, staff at a shoe factory claimed a faulty generator sparked the fire.
'We saw our colleagues burning alive, in flames,' said Shabdir Hussain, from his hospital bed. 'We could do nothing. We saved our lives by jumping from the roof.'

Firefighters were still trying to subdue the blaze in Karachi yesterday morning, as hospital staff revealed its morgue was full with 'around 30 bodies burnt beyond recognition all lined up'.
'People started screaming for their lives,' said factory worker Mohammad Asif, 20. 'Everyone came to the window. I jumped from the third floor.'
Another worker, Liaqat Hussain, 29, spoke from his hospital bed where he was being treated for burns all over his body. He said: 'Within two minutes there was fire in the entire factory.

'The gate was closed. There was no access to get out, we were trapped inside.'

Doomed: Firefighters remove the body of one of the trapped Karachi workers

Surveying the scene: Locals gather to witness the last of the flames being dealt with in Karachi

Fire chief Ehtisham-ud-Din said most of the garment factory deaths were caused by suffocation as people caught in the basement were unable to escape.
Senior Superintendent of Police Amir Farooqi revealed that police were raiding parts of Karachi to search for the owners of the factory, which employed around 450 people.
Smoke was still rising from the garment factory as rescue workers pulled out charred corpses and covered them in white sheets.
Weeping relatives of workers stood around in the street awaiting word of their fate.
At least 35 people were injured. The cause of the fire is not yet known.
The death toll from the late Tuesday fires is likely to raise fresh questions about industrial safety in the South Asian nation and draw more criticism of the deeply unpopular government.

Gruesome task: Medical staff try to identify the bodies of the deceased taken from the Karachi garment factory

Crowds: A group watches on as firefighters deal with the blaze at a shoe factory in Lahore

Critics say Pakistan's government is too corrupt and ineffective to focus on the welfare of workers and a dizzying array of other problems, from crippling power cuts, to widespread poverty to a Taliban insurgency.
Are these the headlines we want to see in Scotland. Make sure that Fire, which is a Devolved issue is not included in the UK Governmet's rush to De-Regulate Health & Safety. The Scottish Government should ensure that non domestic premises in Scotland are exempt from these draconian measures. The existing Legislation has served well with a large drop in the number of fires in Commercial properties in Scotland since it's inception. It is argued the the requirement to have a Fire Risk Assessment has contributed in no small measure to this decrease.
If we take away this requirement as part of a drive for De-Regulation, these headlines unfortuneatly might become common in the UK.