Pakistani firefighters have retrieved the bodies of up to 25 people from the debris of a shopping mall fire in Karachi, taking the death toll to around 50.
The port city's largest fire in more than a decade broke out late on Saturday and quickly spread through the sprawling Gul Plaza shopping complex, famous for its 1,200 family-owned stores selling wedding clothes, toys, crockery and other goods.
"We have found 20 to 25 dead bodies, or you call them remains," deputy commissioner Javed Nabi Khoso told reporters. He said the remains had been taken to a hospital for DNA matching.
Due to the difficulties in identification, he said it was difficult to give a precise update on the death toll, which stood at 29 on Tuesday.
A small crowd paying tribute to the victims lit candles near the site, with some holding images of those presumed killed.
Firefighters had been battling the inferno inside the mall until Tuesday. By the time it was brought under control, Gul Plaza was reduced to a pile of ash and debris.
A total of 84 people had been registered missing, according to a state-run rescue service.
Police have said most of the missing are feared dead, meaning the toll could rise.
"It is a doomsday scenario," shopkeeper Rehmat Khan said. He said around 18 to 20 people had been in the shop, including six staff, when the fire erupted in the mall. All of them were missing, he said.
DNA matching underway
At Civil Hospital Karachi, provincial health official Summaiya Syed said DNA samples from 51 families had been taken so far.
"We will hand over the bodies [remains] to the family, once DNA samples are matched," she told journalists outside the hospital mortuary.
Muhammad Saleem said his family had decided not to take the remains home if his three missing relatives are identified.
"They are bringing only remains wrapped inside clothes," he told the Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency.
"Our family members still believe that they are alive. They will go mad, if they see these remains. We will not show them to anyone and will bury them," he said at the hospital.
Faraz Ali, whose father and 26-year-old brother were inside the mall, said he wants "the bodies to be recovered and handed over to their rightful families".
"That is all so that the families may receive something, some comfort, some peace. At least let us see them one last time, in whatever condition they are, so that we may say our final goodbye," Al told AFP.
A government committee has launched an investigation, but the cause of the inferno was not immediately clear.
Fires are common in Karachi's markets and factories, which are known for their poor infrastructure, but a blaze on such a scale is rare.
The blaze was Karachi's most deadly since an industrial site went up in flames in 2012, killing more than 260 people.
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