At least 44 people were killed and 22 injured in a fire now under control in a multi-storey commercial building in the Bailey Road area of Dhaka, one of the most privileged areas of the Bangladeshi capital.
“We have 43 bodies here. There could be more bodies in other hospitals as well, but we don't know yet. Fourteen people injured in the fire are receiving treatment at two hospitals. His condition is not good either,” the Asian country's Health Minister, Samanta Lal Sen, told reporters this Friday from the Sheikh Hasina Burn Institute in Dhaka.
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Most of them died due to the thick smoke caused by the fire. So far we have identified 27 bodies
Police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun told reporters that another body was taken to a police hospital, bringing the death toll to 44.
The fire was reported at around 9:45 p.m. local time on Thursday (3:45 p.m. GMT), fire service official Anwar Hossain said.
The fire service found 42 people unconsciousmost of whom were declared dead at the hospital, said Bacchu Miah, in charge of the police post at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
“Most of them died due to the dense smoke caused by the fire. So far we have identified 27 bodies and have handed them over to their families. The rest are in the identification process,” Miah told EFE.
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Relatives and survivors described to local journalists and television channels how their relatives called them after the fire started and they were left incommunicado within a few minutes.
“I was in the restaurant with my wife and two children. My children suffered minor injuries, but thanks to the almighty we managed to come out alive when the firefighters rescued us,” Mohammad Kamruzzaman, an environmentalist and professor at a private university in Dhaka, told EFE.
Among the victims are at least five members of a single family who went out to dinner for the arrival of the weekend, according to local media.
The restaurant is located in a multi-story shopping center that also houses other restaurants, clothing stores and mobile phone stores.
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At the moment the causes of what happened are unknown.. Authorities have formed a five-member committee to investigate the incident.
Fires and industrial accidents are common in Bangladesh, a country with few safety measures, where these types of incidents usually cause a high number of deaths.
The last major incident of its kind occurred in June 2022, when an explosion and subsequent fire at a container depot in southeastern Bangladesh killed 41 people and injured more than 200.
Another similar fire affected the center of the Bangladeshi capital on March 7, 2023, when an explosion occurred in a building that left fifteen people dead and another 39 injured.
EFE
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