Woman saved after explosion

Rescue workers pulled a 65-year-old woman out alive after she was trapped for 31 hours in the rubble of a collapsed factory in an eastern Pakistan city, as the death toll from the accident rose to 18.

The three-storey factory manufactured medicine and collapsed after several gas cylinders inside exploded. It had been set up illegally in a residential area of Lahore and continued operations even though the government tried to shut it down three times, officials said.

Rescue workers heard 65-year-old Saleha Bibi screaming for help, and it took them several hours to pull her out from the jagged pile of concrete blocks.