Alam Channa

Haji Mohammad Alam Channa (1953 in Sehwan, Sindh province, Pakistan – 2 July 1998 in New York City) was one of the tallest living people with the height of 7.8 feet (2.4 m).[1] According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the tallest living man in the world (between 1982 and 1998), was Pakistan’s Mohammad Alam Channa. Before his death in 1998, Channa was reported to be 7.7 feet (2.3 m) tall.[2]

Haji Mohammad Alam Channa
Born	1953 Sehwan, Sindh province, Pakistan
Died	2 July 1998 New York City
Nationality	Pakistani
Other names	Channa
Known for	7ft 8inch

Born in 1953 in the city of Sehwan (in Pakistan’s Sindh province), Alam Channa is said to have stood 6 ft 4 inches by the time he was 18. He continued to grow taller till he was 26.

Channa came from an impoverished Sindhi family. He did not receive any noteworthy education. The male members of his family had traditionally served as minor retainers at the famous shrine of Sufi saint, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, in Shewan. Here is where Channa too spent most of his years, tasked to keep certain areas of the shrine clean. According to Channa’s paternal side of the family, Channa was making just Rs. 15 a week at the shrine! So when the circus offered him Rs. 160 a month, he decided to immediately accept the offer.

The circus turned Channa into a local star. He would travel with it across the length and breadth of Sindh. All he had to do was to make an entry just when two short men dressed as jokers were going through their routine. He would walk in and proceed to lift up the jokers (who would pretend to run away from the giant). Channa would grab them and then put them on his shoulders.

In 1981 a man who had watched Channa at the circus wrote a letter to the editors of the famous Guinness Book of World Records. With the letter he also sent some photos of Channa he had taken at the circus.

Months later some officials from Guinness landed in Sindh’s capital city, Karachi, and from there they reached Sehwan where they met and measured Channa. They measured him at being 7 ft 7 inches. On their return to the UK, the men entered Channa’s name in the Guinness book as the tallest living human on earth.[2]

In 1998 his kidneys began to fail. The government decided to send him to the US and finance his treatment.[3] But in a US hospital, he slipped into a coma and died, aged 45. He is buried in Sehwan.[4]