At least 13 people were killed and more than a dozen injured on Saturday when a fire broke out in a plastic factory in Bangladesh’s capital, emergency service officials said.
Police and fire officers believe the blaze started when gas cylinders exploded in the factory’s boiler room, then raced through the four-storey Nasim Plastic factory in minutes.
“We’ve recovered 13 bodies,” local police chief Mohammad Jashimuddin told AFP, adding the fire was brought under control in around two hours and that the factory floors had been thoroughly searched. “Three people were critically burnt and they were shifted to a hospital,” he added.
A fire official said those who died were plastic factory workers who were burnt or suffocated after they were trapped on the upper floors. Factory worker Mohammad Khokon said 150-200 people usually work in the building, but the number on site was less than that because it was a weekend.
Dozens of friends and relatives of the missing workers crowded the factory site in Dhaka’s northern Mirpur suburb as fire fighters sifted through the charred remains of the building.
Relatives of eleven fire victims, who died in Saturday’s inferno at a Styrofoam package factory –APCCO Bangladesh Ltd – at Mirpur 1 in the capital, identified their charred bodies yesterday.
The remaining two bodies were beyond recognition as they were burnt badly. The Dhaka Medical College authorities have decided to run a DNA test to ascertain their identities.
After the bodies were taken to the DMCH following the incident on Saturday night relatives thronged the premises to identify the bodies.
As most of the bodies were charred their relatives had to identify the bodies by their dresses, old spots, ornaments and birthmarks.
But the members of two families claimed one of the unidentified bodies as Zahirul and Afzal respectively prompting the authorities to carry out a DNA test.
A heart-rending situation descended on the morgue premises when the relatives identified the bodies. Later they were handed over to them after verifications.
Safety conditions at Bangladeshi factories have come under international scrutiny in recent years. A fire at a garment factory killed 112 workers in 2012, and in 2013 more than 1,100 people died in the collapse of a building housing five garment factories. That led a group of mostly European fashion brands to fund safety inspections in garment factories that began last year.
Monday 2 February 2015
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