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Bangladesh Fire Kills at Least 69 Bangladesh Fire Tears Through Crowded Neighborhood, Killing 70
(32 minutes later)
A fire that broke out at a building in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, has killed at least 69 people, fire officials said Thursday. NEW DELHI — A fast-moving fire tore through a crowded neighborhood in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, turning into an inferno that killed at least 70 people, fire officials said Thursday.
Mahfuz Riben, an official of the Fire Service and Civil Defense in Dhaka, told The Associated Press that the death toll had risen to 69 and that many had been trapped in buildings. Bangladesh has a poor record when it comes to fire safety, with many buildings cheaply made and unsafe, and with risks compounded by poor enforcement and unscrupulous management. In one of the worst disasters, in 2012, 112 people were killed when a fire ripped through the Tazreen Fashions garment factory outside Dhaka.
“Many of the recovered bodies are beyond recognition,” he said. “Our people are using body bags to send them to the hospital morgue — this is a very difficult situation.” According to fire officials, the fire started in a mixed-use building on Wednesday night, when most people were sleeping. Some witnesses said a compressed gas cylinder, which many people use for cooking, started the fire.
The fire broke out Wednesday night in a building in the city’s Chawkbazar area, a centuries-old neighborhood with many mixed-use structures, with warehouses and stores commonly on the lower floors and residential areas above. The Dhaka Tribune reported that the building where the fire broke out housed a plastics warehouse and was full of flammable material. Chemicals, including paints, were stored in shops on the building’s ground floor, feeding the flames that engulfed the entire building and spread to others. The neighborhood, Chawkbazar, is centuries old and home to serpentine alleyways and teetering buildings standing so close together they nearly touch.
Bangladesh was also the site of a devastating fire in 2012, when a blaze ripped through the Tazreen Fashions factory outside Dhaka, killing 112 people. That blaze and its high death toll focused attention on the unsafe work conditions and low wages at many garment factories in the country. Haji Abdul Kader, who runs a small pharmacy in the neighborhood, told Agence France-Presse that he heard “a big bang” and then looked out to see “the whole street, which was jam packed with cars and rickshaws, in flames.”
By daybreak on Thursday, the building was nothing but charred timber and ashes. Other buildings nearby were badly burned as well.
“Many of the recovered bodies are beyond recognition,” Mahfuz Riben, an official of the Fire Service and Civil Defense in Dhaka, told The Associated Press. “Our people are using body bags to send them to the hospital morgue — this is a very difficult situation.”
Fire officials said the death toll may rise as they continue to search for survivors and bodies.