A large hearth at a container depot close to a port metropolis in southeastern Bangladesh killed a minimum of 38 individuals and injured greater than 100 others, officers and native media reported Sunday, as firefighters struggled to get the blaze beneath management.
The fireplace on the BM Inland Container Depot, a Dutch-Bangladesh three way partnership, broke out round midnight Saturday following explosions in a container filled with chemical compounds. The reason for the fireplace couldn’t be instantly decided. The depot is positioned close to nation’s most important Chittagong Seaport, 216 kilometres southeast of the capital, Dhaka.
A minimum of 5 firefighters had been among the many useless, in accordance with Brig.-Gen. Essential Uddin, director common of the Bangladesh hearth service and civil defence. One other 15 firefighters had been being handled for burns, he added.
A number of rounds of explosions occurred after the preliminary blast as the fireplace continued to unfold, Uddin mentioned. Explosives specialists from Bangladesh’s army have been known as in to help the firefighters. The explosions shattered the home windows of close by buildings and had been felt so far as 4 kilometres away, officers and native media experiences mentioned.
Firefighters had been nonetheless working to deliver the fireplace beneath management on Sunday.
The demise toll reached 38 by Sunday afternoon, in accordance with Ekattor TV station, and the world’s civil surgeon mentioned the quantity might nonetheless rise.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed her shock on the accident and ordered that sufficient medical therapy be organized for the injured.
Earlier disasters
Bangladesh has a historical past of business disasters, together with factories catching hearth with employees trapped inside. Monitoring teams have blamed corruption and lax enforcement for these lethal incidents through the years.
International manufacturers, which make use of tens of 1000’s of low-paid employees in Bangladesh, have come beneath hearth to enhance manufacturing unit circumstances in recent times. Within the nation’s huge garment trade, which employs about 4 million individuals, security circumstances have improved considerably after huge reforms, however specialists say accidents might nonetheless happen if different sectors don’t make comparable modifications.
In 2012, about 117 employees died once they had been trapped behind locked exits in a garment manufacturing unit in Dhaka.
The nation’s worst industrial catastrophe occurred the next yr, when the Rana Plaza garment manufacturing unit exterior Dhaka collapsed, killing greater than 1,100 individuals.
In 2019, a blaze ripped by a 400-year-old space cramped with residences, outlets and warehouses within the oldest a part of Dhaka and killed a minimum of 67 individuals. One other hearth in Outdated Dhaka in a home illegally storing chemical compounds killed a minimum of 123 individuals in 2010.
In 2021, a hearth at a meals and beverage manufacturing unit exterior Dhaka killed a minimum of 52 individuals, a lot of whom had been trapped inside by an illegally locked door.