KARACHI — The towering metal door at the back of the burned-out garment factory could have been an escape for many of the low-paid textile workers caught in the fire here Tuesday. Instead, it stands as a testament to greed and corruption at a factory where 289 trapped employees died.
As hundreds of workers scrambled to escape the flaming factory after a boiler explosion, they found the main sliding door — 30 feet high, big enough for a truckload of cotton — firmly locked. Instead of letting the workers escape, several survivors said Thursday, plant managers forced them to stay in order to save the company’s stock: piles of stonewashed jeans, destined for Europe.
“They prevented people from leaving, so they could save the clothes,’’ said Shahzad, a stone-faced man in sweat-drenched clothes, standing in the blackened corridors of the factory.
His voice trembling, Shahzad, who goes by just one name, said he had already recovered the body of a 15-year-old cousin; now he was looking for his 23-year-old brother, Ayaz. He figured he was buried under the mounds of ash and twisted metal.
“He’s gone,’’ he said quietly.
Karachi buried its dead Thursday amid grief and recrimination over the deadliest industrial accident in Pakistan’s 65-year history.
Sounds of keening filled working-class neighborhoods as emotionally charged funeral processions wound through the narrow streets. Amid such a high death toll, the stories of misfortune competed for pathos — one street lost eight residents; a mother said she lost three daughters, then a son who tried to rescue them.
At the factory, known as Ali Enterprises, rescue workers quenched the last flames 48 hours after they started. Volunteers cast bundles of smoldering jeans, apparently destined for shops in Germany, from a first-floor window.
Meanwhile, the police spent a second day hunting the factory’s three owners, who now face possible charges of conspiracy to commit murder.
Mirza Ikhtiar Baig, the prime minister’s adviser on textiles, noted in a statement that after the first fire engine reached the scene Tuesday, firefighters found that the manager had ordered the gates to be closed, ‘‘not allowing anyone to leave the premises without checking.’’
Instead, up to 600 factory workers were left with just one open exit, or had to take their chances plunging from windows considered too high to require bars.
Inside the factory, warmth still flowed from the pitch-black basement where many workers died of smoke inhalation.
Muhammad Raheel, a rescuer, said he helped recover 30 bodies before fainting and having to be carried out on a stretcher.
‘‘I still have visions in my head,’’ he said. ‘‘It is impossible to forget.’’
In theory, Pakistan’s laws offer strong protections to workers, but implementation is notoriously weak. In textiles, which account for 53 percent of exports, employers routinely sidestep health and safety regulations through bribery and corruption.
‘‘The state inspectors can make a lot of extra money,’’ said Sharafat Ali, an activist with the Pakistan Institute of Labor Education and Research, which has documented abuses in the textile industry.
The lack of regulation was apparent inside the factory, which contained space for fire extinguishers that had failed, and directions to emergency exits that were locked.
On Thursday, the Sindh Province labor minister resigned. Hours later, the government announced that a retired judge would lead an investigation tasked with delivering initial findings next week.
But few here believed it would amount to much.
‘‘We need to do more than change the faces — we need to change the policies,’’ said Farida Bibi, who lost her 26-year-old son. ‘‘Then we need to hang the men who owned this factory.’’