Woman, security guard killed, 17 injured in Dhaka fire

By Sumi Khan

Dhaka, April 23 (SocialNews.XYZ) Two persons, including a security guard, were killed and at least 17 including three firefighters were injured in a fire at a six storied building in Dhaka, that was housing a chemical warehouse located in density populated Armanitola area. The incident took place at around 3 a.m. on Friday when the devotees were having food for fasting on Muslim holy month Ramadan.

The fire broke out at the chemical storage on the first floor of the Haji Musa Mansion, Brig Gen Md Sazzad Hussain, Director General of Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence told IANS.

Seventeen units of fire service and civil defence managed to control the inferno after a hard struggle of three hours.

The six-storey building at Armanitola, next to the Babubazar Bridge in old Dhaka, has a chemical storage and a few shops on the ground floor, while tenants were living in upper floors.

Earlier, on June 3, 2010, 124 people died in a fire at an illegally operated chemical warehouse in Nimtali, Old Dhaka. Besides, on the night of February 20, 2019, at least six people died in a terrible fire from a series of chemical factories in the resident area of Churihatta of Chawkbazar. Then after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina directly asked to shift the chemical industries from the residential are of old Dhaka, which is denied, and created this calamity.

The dead body of the security guard was recovered from the building and a woman, who was severely burned, died on the way to hospital confirmed the fire service official. Other residents of the building rescued with crane cutting the Iron made porch- grill of the building, he said.

Source: IANS