Prison officials allowed their cells due to the shifts of the earthquake in Pakistan. 216 managed to escape, the officials say.

Officials said on Tuesday that more than 200 prisoners escaped from one of the prison and killed at least one in an exchange of fire in the southern city of Karachi, Pakistani, after they temporarily left their cells due to the shivering of the earthquake.

Kashif Abbasi, the senior police official, said that 216 prisoners fled prison in the capital of Sindh district. From these, 78 were restored. He said he did not condemn or face the trial as an assistant among those who fled.

A prisoner was killed and three security officials were injured in the shooting operation, but the situation was controlled, adding that the police were conducting raids to seize the remaining fugitives.

Diaa Al -Hassan Lanjar, Minister of the Provincial Law, told reporters at the scene that the prisoners were allowed to enter the courtyard and there was “panic” due to the tremors, according to Reuters news agency reports. He said that the penetration started immediately before midnight on Monday and was continuing in the early hours of Tuesday.

The officials said that the prisoners were still outside the cells when a group of guards suddenly attacked their weapons, opened fire and fled.

The supervisor of Maleir Prison, Arshad Shah, said that the prisoners fled towards a nearby residential area. According to the residents, the police later used the mosque loudspeakers to alert them to break the prison and asked to help the fugitives.

The Prime Minister of Sind, Murad Ali Shah, who is not associated with the prison official, asked the fugitives in televised comments to return voluntarily, saying that they only participated in minor crimes until that point. But he said they might face terrorist charges if the police arrested them for breaking the protection.

Although the prisoners escaped while they were transferring to the court to trial, the prison rest periods are not common in Pakistan, where the authorities have strengthened security since 2013, when the Pakistani Taliban fired more than 200 prisoners in an attack on a prison in the northwest of Dera Ismail Khan. Lanjar said that the latest was one of the largest Pakistan.

Karachi witnessed several light and shallow earthquakes in 24 hours, ranging from 2.6 to 3.4 in size, according to the National Solidarity Center.