Asia

Bangladesh building fire kills 46, injures dozens

Relatives gathered at the hospital early on Friday to receive the bodies of the dead, with some mourning outside the emergency department.

“I could not save my daughter,” wailed Abdul Quddus, the father of Nimu, whose relatives said she was among a group of five cousins and friends who all died in the fire.

Also killed, along with his wife, two daughters and a son, was Syed Mubarak Hossain Kauchar, whose family was celebrating plans to emigrate to Italy on Mar 18, after their visas came through on Thursday, a relative said.

“Finally the dream was going to be fulfilled,” said his cousin, Atiqur Rahman. “To celebrate, they came to a restaurant but all died.”

Doctors said most of the dead were killed by suffocation with others dying as they jumped off the building, which also houses some clothing and mobile telephone shops.

Smoke billowed from the side of the building in video images filmed by a witness on Thursday.

The fire could have originated from a gas leak or stove, said Brigadier General Main Uddin, a top fire service official.

“It was a dangerous building with gas cylinders on every floor, even on the stairs,” he told Reuters, adding that it had a single staircase, lacking ventilation, an emergency exit and other safety features.

The government has set up a five-member panel to investigate the incident.

The main opposition party blamed the government for the fire.

“Accidents and disasters keep happening as there is no rule of law,” Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the secretary general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said in a statement.

“The government is not accountable to the people and that’s why anarchy prevails, many accidents occur and people lose their lives.”

Intense scrutiny of Bangladesh and the major global clothing retailers that manufacture there has helped prevent disasters in the garment sector since a fire in 2012 and a building collapse in 2013 together killed more than 1,200 workers.

But in other industries, mainly catering to the booming domestic economy and lacking equal emphasis on safety, hundreds of people have died in fires.

Fires are common in densely populated Dhaka, where many new buildings have sprung up, many lacking adequate safety measures. Fires and explosions have resulted from faulty gas cylinders, air conditioners and poor electrical wiring.

In July 2021, many children were among the 54 people killed at a food processing factory outside Dhaka, while at least 70 people were killed in a February 2019 fire that engulfed a centuries-old precinct. 

Source: CNA

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