740 Karachi Dangerous Buildings Still Standing
An audit by the Auditor General of Pakistan has found that 740 declared dangerous buildings in Karachi remain standing, exposing serious gaps in the work of the city’s building safety watchdog. The Karachi dangerous buildings audit is the latest official warning about structures already declared unsafe. The report has put the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) under fresh scrutiny over demolitions, approvals and financial controls.
Tribune reported that the SBCA awarded demolition contracts without ensuring that contractors possessed the necessary machinery or technical expertise. The report described a wider pattern of regulatory lapses, questionable construction approvals, financial irregularities and administrative failures inside the authority tasked with safeguarding the city’s buildings.
What the Karachi dangerous buildings audit found
The audit questioned the effectiveness of the SBCA’s single-window system for construction approvals. Despite its introduction to streamline the process, the authority took an average of 50.85 days to issue construction permits, compared with just 14 days under the manual system in 2019.
The report further revealed that construction permits were issued without obtaining mandatory no-objection certificates (NOCs) for sale and advertisement. That lapse can expose buyers to legal complications arising from the sale of units that lack the required clearances.
A dangerous-building declaration is meant to be the first step towards evacuation or demolition, not a label that sits on a file while residents keep living inside. When demolition contracts go to firms without the right machinery, even buildings marked for removal are not dealt with safely.
Why the numbers differ between reports
Readers may notice that different reports give different totals for Karachi’s dangerous buildings. A letter published in The Express Tribune on October 22 said the SBCA had declared 588 buildings in the city dangerous, yet only 59 had been vacated and demolition had been approved for just 39.
That letter also noted that 444 of the 588 were heritage buildings needing a heritage committee NOC before demolition, which slows the process further. The new audit figure of 740 comes from a separate official review, so the two totals should not be read as a single list. What both reports agree on is the core problem: far more buildings have been declared dangerous than have been vacated or demolished.
In Lyari alone, the October 22 letter said, nearly 100 of the dangerous buildings were located, which means many families there live under the same risk every day.
The Lyari collapse that raised the alarm
The debate over dangerous buildings sharpened after a five-storey building in Lyari’s Baghdadi area collapsed in July 2025, killing 27 people. The victims included 11 women, 16 men and a one-and-a-half-year-old girl, while 10 other people were injured.
After that collapse, the Sindh government dismissed the SBCA director-general, suspended SBCA staff responsible for overseeing Lyari, and earmarked 51 buildings for demolition after examination. The provincial government also pledged Rs1 million in compensation for each of the bereaved families and set up a committee led by the Karachi commissioner to investigate the condition of other dilapidated buildings across the city.
Karachi has faced building safety failures before, and the city was reminded of the risk again when 162 buildings were found non-compliant with fire safety rules. Separately, the SBCA ordered the immediate evacuation of nine buildings in different parts of Lyari after declaring them dangerous and hazardous to human life, warning that the structures could collapse at any time.
What happens next
Frequently asked questions
How many dangerous buildings are still standing in Karachi?
The Auditor General’s audit found 740 declared dangerous buildings still standing. A separate count cited in an October 22 letter put the declared total at 588, so figures vary between reports.
Why were the SBCA demolition contracts criticised?
The audit found that demolition contracts were awarded without ensuring that contractors possessed the necessary machinery or technical expertise.
What did the audit say about construction permits?
It found that the SBCA’s single-window system took an average of 50.85 days to issue permits, against 14 days under the manual system in 2019, and that permits were issued without mandatory NOCs for sale and advertisement.
What happened in Lyari in July 2025?
A five-storey building in Lyari’s Baghdadi area collapsed, killing 27 people. The Sindh government dismissed the SBCA director-general, suspended SBCA staff, and earmarked 51 buildings for demolition.
