1.   The city was wracked by a fiscal crisis, so it seemed a good deal for the Milsteins.

2.   The exodus followed some of the worst rioting to wrack the city in decades, led by mobs fed up with economic hardship and students wanting political change.

3.   The port city is wracked by rival ethnic, religious and political groups, as well as drug smugglers shipping opium and heroin out of neighbouring Afghanistan.

4.   The city has been wracked by political and sectarian violence.

5.   The MQM is blamed by the government for much of the violence that has wracked the city, but the group denies the government charge.