Paramilitary soldiers stand outside the district Malir prison on June 3, 2025 after more than 200 inmates escaped on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan. Akhtar Soomro / REUTERS

More than 200 inmates escaped from a prison and at least one was killed in a shootout in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi after they were temporarily moved out of their cells due to earthquake tremors, officials said Tuesday.

Kashif Abbasi, a senior police official, said 216 inmates fled the prison in the capital of Sindh province. Of those, 78 had been recaptured. No one convicted or facing trial as a militant was among those who fled, he said.

One prisoner was killed and three security officials wounded in the ensuing shootout, but the situation has been brought under control, Abbasi said, adding that police were conducting raids to capture the remaining escapees.

Zia-ul-Hasan Lanjar, the provincial law minister, told reporters at the scene the inmates were allowed into the courtyard and there was "panic" because of the tremors, the Reuters news agency reports. The breakout began just before midnight on Monday and was continuing in the early hours of Tuesday, he said.

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

The superintendent of Malir prison, Arshad Shah, said the inmates fled toward a nearby residential area. According to residents, police later used mosque loudspeakers to alert them to the jailbreak and seek help in arresting the escapees.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, who isn't related to the prison official, asked the escapees in televised comments to voluntarily return, saying they'd only been involved in minor crimes until that point. But he said they could face terror charges if they're arrested by police on the jailbreak charge.

Though prisoners have escaped while being transported to court for trial, prison breaks aren't common in Pakistan, where authorities have enhanced security since 2013, when the Pakistani Taliban freed more than 200 inmates in an attack on a prison in the northwestern district of Dera Ismail Khan. But the latest was one of Pakistan's biggest, Lanjar said.

Karachi has experienced several mild and shallow earthquakes in 24 hours, ranging from 2.6 to 3.4 in magnitude, according to the National Seismic Monitoring Center.

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