Bansri Shah, Pune
At least 43 people were killed and dozens were left injured in a massive fire that broke out in a multi-storey shopping mall in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka on February 29.
The fire is said to have begun at 9:50pm local time in a biryani restaurant on Bailey Road and quickly spread to the upper floors of the building, trapping people inside. It took the fire department about two hours to get the fire under control with 75 people successfully getting rescued. Samanta Lal Sen, Bangladesh’s Health Minister, reported that a minimum of 33 people, including women and children, were pronounced dead at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, with an additional 10 fatalities recorded at the city’s primary burns hospital. According to Mr. Sen, the number of casualties is expected to increase.
The emergency responders were called to the Kacchi Bhai restaurant which according to the newspaper, Daily Bangladesh, is situated in a seven-storey building. The same complex also houses other restaurants as well as clothing and mobile phone shops.
A restaurant manager called Sohel, one of the people trapped said, “We were on the sixth floor when we first saw smoke racing through the staircase. A lot of people rushed upstairs. We used a water pipe to climb down the building. Some of us were injured as they jumped from upstairs.” Another survivor, Mohammad Altaf, told reporters that he escaped only because he broke a kitchen window and jumped to save himself. A cashier and a server who had helped people escape in the initial moments of the fire had ended up dying, he added.
The head of the Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence, Brigadier General Main Uddin, told AFP news agency, “It was a dangerous building with gas cylinders on every floor, even on the staircases.”
The Prime Minister of the country, Sheikh Hasina, has responded to the incident, expressing her shock and sorrow. She also ordered officials to provide swift treatment for the people who have been wounded.
The cause of the fire still remains unknown, the government has set up a five-member panel to investigate it.