Explosion at Pakistan fireworks storage facility injures at least 25 people

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — An explosion at a fireworks storage facility in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi on Thursday injured at least 25 people, some of them critically, police and hospital officials said.

Television footage showed thick smoke billowing into the sky from the building where firecrackers were stored. Broken glass from nearby shop windows littered the road as panicked residents rushed from the scene, witnesses said.

Firefighters worked to extinguish the blaze while ambulances transported the injured, including passersby, to several hospitals, senior police official Asad Raza said.

The blast damaged several shops and vehicles passing through an area known as Jinnah Road.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear.

Explosions at fireworks facilities are common in Pakistan. In January, six people were killed in a similar blast at a fireworks storage site in Mandi Bahauddin, a city in the eastern Punjab province.