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2012 Pakistan factory fires

2012 industrial disasters in Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ2989488 ↗
Source-derived summary

Factories in Pakistan's two largest cities of Karachi and Lahore caught fire on 11 September 2012. The fires occurred in a textile factory in the western part of Karachi and in a shoe factory in Lahore. The fires are considered to be the most deadly and worst industrial factory fires in Pakistan's history, killing 289 people and seriously injuring more than 600.

Background

Pakistan has one of the largest labour and manpower resources in the world, due to its large population. According to data produced by the CIA World Factbook, the total number of Pakistan's labour force at the time was 58.4 million, making it the 10th largest country in terms of available human workforce. About 20.1% of the labour force is involved in industry. The conditions under which Pakistan's blue-collar labour works have often been raised by trade unions and workers' rights organisations. There is also a controversial, yet widespread use of child labour in Pakistan.

The garment factory "Ali Enterprises", which is located in Plot 67, Hub Road, Baldia Town, Karachi, used to export its garments to Europe and the United States, and had employed between 1,200 and 1,500 workers. Ali Enterprises manufactured denim, knitted garments, and hosiery, and had capital of between $10 million and $50 million.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “2012 Pakistan factory fires” as 2012 industrial disasters in Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Pakistan, factory and fires.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2012—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Pakistan, factory and fires providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “2012 Pakistan factory fires”, the useful work is to connect “2012 industrial disasters in Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2989488. Authority coordinates are 24.860, 67.010. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow 2012 Pakistan factory fires primary sources, 2012 Pakistan factory fires archive and Pakistan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “2012 Pakistan factory fires” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.