Owner faces charges in gas blast

Three buildings collapsed after the pre-dawn blast

Police in Pakistan have registered a case against one of the owners of a gas filling plant which caused an explosion in Lahore killing 29 people.

Gas cylinders exploded early on Tuesday in the basement of the building which illegally housed the plant.

Rescue work has now been called off and the bodies of all but one unclaimed victim have been handed to relatives for burial, police say.

The other owner of the plant was killed in the blast.

Inquiry

Rescue workers called off operations after sifting through collapsed concrete and twisted metal for about 20 hours.

Police said a case had been registered against the building's owner, who they named as Ghulam Mohammad Khokhar, for allowing a business to operate in a residential zone.

"He has fled his home and we are trying to arrest him," a police officer told the AFP news agency.

The building's basement reportedly housed an ice-cream factory and a number of ice-cream vendors who were sleeping there were among the dead.

Seven members of one family also died in the pre-dawn blast, which brought down two other buildings.

"I heard a deafening bang, then it seemed like the world fell on me and then I passed out," one survivor, Mohammed Mushtaq, told AFP.

"The next thing I knew I was being pulled out of the rubble by rescuers several hours later."

Some residents said authorities had ignored their complaints about the presence of the cylinders.

Police have now been ordered to close all similar gas cylinder operations in residential areas.

The BBC's Shahid Malik in Lahore says dozens of people have been killed in the city in the past five years in incidents involving use of residential premises for commercial purposes.

Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhri Pervaiz Elahi has ordered an inquiry into Tuesday's blast.

He also directed the provincial law minister to ensure legal requirements for storing potentially dangerous substances were being met.