Staff Reporter :
Firefighters recovered six charred bodies from the debris after a fire swept through a building that housed a plastic factory and a restaurant in Old Dhaka’s Chawkbazar on Monday.
Despite government directions were in place to shift highly flammable warehouses and factories from the city’s Old Dhaka, several hundreds of chemical warehouses, plastic industries and chemical godowns still exist there making it a dangerous place for fire.
Had the people of old Dhaka been aware of their responsibility, the six lives could have been saved, people of the locality said yesterday.
The government also had the responsibility to enforce their directions regarding fire, they said.
Various fire incidents took place in the locality which claimed many lives in the past.
The Monday’s fire incident took place in Chawkbazar’s Kamalbagh
at around 12 pm and claimed six innocent lives, said Deputy Assistant Director (media cell) of the Fire Service and Civil Defense Directorate.
Ten firefighting units doused the flames after two and hours. The responders were later seen carrying the bodies out of the building’s fifth floor.
“We found six bodies inside the building,” said Anwarul Islam, a fire service official.
The bodies were sent to Sir Salimullah Medical College Hospital (Mitford Hospital) morgue for autopsy.
Deputy Commissioner of Lalbagh, Md Zafar Hossain, said the bodies will be handed over to their families after the DNA tests are done.
The identities of the bodies could not be known yet.
Relatives of three staff of the restaurant claimed that Billal, 33, of Barishal, Osman, 25, of Shariatpur, and Shwapon and Sharif, 20 were missing after the fire incident. Two more are yet to be identified.
The fire started from the restaurant on Monday morning and later spread to a plastic factory.
There was a restaurant on the ground floor of the four-story building in which the factory was situated. The fire started after a cylinder had exploded. There are other plastic, polythene, and chemical factories nearby, so the overall situation is critical, the fire service said.
Locals said that a cylinder exploded in the restaurant on the ground floor of the building.
The fire was brought under control at 2:20pm, the fire service said.
The authorities are looking into the cause of the fire and the extent of the damage it caused.
On 3 June 2010, a calamitous fire incident happened in old Dhaka’s Nimtoli area that claimed lives of 124 people.
The fire started when an electrical transformer exploded. The head of the fire department speculated that the fire was fanned by perfumes, chemicals and other flammable products stored in shops.
The density of the residential area made it difficult for firefighters to quell the blaze.
On 20 February 2019, a devastating fire that broke out at Chawkbazar’s Churihatta intersection claimed lives of 70 people.
The deadly fire had ravaged several buildings housing shops, chemical and plastic warehouses on Nanda Kumar Lane of Old Dhaka.
Apart from the dead, the fire had left scores of others with severe injuries.
Firefighters recovered six charred bodies from the debris after a fire swept through a building that housed a plastic factory and a restaurant in Old Dhaka’s Chawkbazar on Monday.
Despite government directions were in place to shift highly flammable warehouses and factories from the city’s Old Dhaka, several hundreds of chemical warehouses, plastic industries and chemical godowns still exist there making it a dangerous place for fire.
Had the people of old Dhaka been aware of their responsibility, the six lives could have been saved, people of the locality said yesterday.
The government also had the responsibility to enforce their directions regarding fire, they said.
Various fire incidents took place in the locality which claimed many lives in the past.
The Monday’s fire incident took place in Chawkbazar’s Kamalbagh
at around 12 pm and claimed six innocent lives, said Deputy Assistant Director (media cell) of the Fire Service and Civil Defense Directorate.
Ten firefighting units doused the flames after two and hours. The responders were later seen carrying the bodies out of the building’s fifth floor.
“We found six bodies inside the building,” said Anwarul Islam, a fire service official.
The bodies were sent to Sir Salimullah Medical College Hospital (Mitford Hospital) morgue for autopsy.
Deputy Commissioner of Lalbagh, Md Zafar Hossain, said the bodies will be handed over to their families after the DNA tests are done.
The identities of the bodies could not be known yet.
Relatives of three staff of the restaurant claimed that Billal, 33, of Barishal, Osman, 25, of Shariatpur, and Shwapon and Sharif, 20 were missing after the fire incident. Two more are yet to be identified.
The fire started from the restaurant on Monday morning and later spread to a plastic factory.
There was a restaurant on the ground floor of the four-story building in which the factory was situated. The fire started after a cylinder had exploded. There are other plastic, polythene, and chemical factories nearby, so the overall situation is critical, the fire service said.
Locals said that a cylinder exploded in the restaurant on the ground floor of the building.
The fire was brought under control at 2:20pm, the fire service said.
The authorities are looking into the cause of the fire and the extent of the damage it caused.
On 3 June 2010, a calamitous fire incident happened in old Dhaka’s Nimtoli area that claimed lives of 124 people.
The fire started when an electrical transformer exploded. The head of the fire department speculated that the fire was fanned by perfumes, chemicals and other flammable products stored in shops.
The density of the residential area made it difficult for firefighters to quell the blaze.
On 20 February 2019, a devastating fire that broke out at Chawkbazar’s Churihatta intersection claimed lives of 70 people.
The deadly fire had ravaged several buildings housing shops, chemical and plastic warehouses on Nanda Kumar Lane of Old Dhaka.
Apart from the dead, the fire had left scores of others with severe injuries.
