At least 67 people have died in a huge fire that tore through apartment buildings also used as chemical warehouses in an old part of Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, a fire official said on Thursday, 21 February.
Dozens of people were trapped in the buildings, unable to escape onto narrow streets clogged with traffic, as the highly-combustible stores of chemicals, body sprays and plastic granules erupted in flames, AFP reported.
Mahfuz Riben, a control room official of the Fire Service and Civil Defense in Dhaka, said the death toll had risen to 67.
He told AP by telephone, "Our teams are working there but many of the recovered bodies are beyond recognition. Our people are using body bags to send them to the hospital morgue, this is a very difficult situation."
A New York Times report, however, claimed that the death toll was at least 110.
Bangladesh's fire service chief Ali Ahmed said the death toll was expected to rise.
“The number of bodies may increase. The search is still going on,” he told AFP.
He said the blaze at Chawkbazar in the old part of Dhaka might have originated from a gas cylinder before quickly spreading through the building where highly flammable chemicals were stored.
The flames raced through four adjoining buildings, which were also used as chemical warehouses, including for storing plastic granules and body sprays.
"There was a traffic jam when the fire broke out. So people could not escape," he said, describing a part of town where the streets are very narrow.
Another fire official told reporters that the blaze, which began around 10:40 pm (16:40 GMT) on Wednesday, has been “confined” but not yet doused despite the efforts of more than 200 firefighters.
"It will take time. This is not like any other fire," he said, adding the inferno became so devastating due to the "highly combustible" chemicals stored there.
A police inspector at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital said at least 45 people were injured, including four people whose conditions were very critical.
Most buildings in old Dhaka are used both for residential and commercial purposes despite warnings of the potential for high fatalities from fires after one had killed at least 123 people in 2010.
Authorities had promised to bring the buildings under regulations and remove chemical warehouses from the residential buildings.
‘Death Toll Could Rise’
The death toll could still rise as the condition of some of the injured people was critical, said Samanta Lal Sen, head of a burn unit of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, as per AP.
Sen said at least nine of the critically injured people were being treated in his unit.
Witnesses told local TV stations that many gas cylinders stored in the buildings continued to explode one after another.
They said the fire also set off explosions in fuel tanks of some of the vehicles that got stuck in traffic in front of the destroyed buildings.
Raveesh Kumar, official spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs, India, reacted to the news of the fire by saying that the ministry was “saddened by the loss of lives as a result of tragic fire in Dhaka”
“We offer our deepest condolences to relatives of those affected by the accident. As a close neighbour and partner, we stand by the people and the Government of Bangladesh in this hour of grief,” he tweeted.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday, 23 February, said that the fire tragedy will force the owners of chemical warehouses to rethink about their decision not to relocate their establishments out of the city despite government pressure.
"Before the incident, a decision was made to remove the factories and warehouses,” the prime minister said.
"But no one agreed to it. We tried to install more modern warehouses, but the owners refused. This was unfortunate," she said. "I hope that those who earlier opposed to relocate their chemical warehouses from (crammed) old Dhaka will not hesitate after the tragedy," she told reporters after visiting the wounded fire patients at National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery.
(With inputs from PTI, AFP and AP)
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