Bangladesh: At least 44 killed hundreds injured in container fire
There were explosions after the fire
Dhaka : A fire at a storage depot near the Bangladeshi city of Chittagong has killed at least 44 people & injured hundreds more.
At 1 point in Sitakunda when several shipping containers caught fire, hundreds of people rushed to scene to contain the blaze. The cause of the fire is not yet known but it is believed that some of the containers contained chemicals which caused the fire.
Hospitals in the area are full of injured and the hospital administration has appealed to the public to donate blood. The condition of many of the injured is said to be critical and the death toll is expected to rise.
The fire broke out around 9pm local time on Saturday and hundreds of firefighters police and volunteers rushed to the scene immediately after the incident. As help was being provided to extinguish the fire, a powerful explosion ripped through some of the containers engulfing rescue workers and injuring several others after blast. Killed
The lorry driver Tufail Ahmed told AFP The blast was so powerful that it fell about 10 meters from where I was standing. My hands and feet are burnt.
Some parts of the depot also caught fire on Sunday
On Sunday morning volunteers some wearing only sandals were seen getting up & removing bodies from the rubble.
The blast also killed at least 5 firefighters and injured several others. Several journalists who were reporting on the fire before the blast are missing.
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The blast was so loud that its sound could be heard several kilometers away and shattered the windows of nearby buildings. A local shopkeeper told reporters that a piece of debris flew half a kilometer away and fell into their pond. He saw fire balls falling like rain" after the blast.
Some volunteers were removing bodies from the rubble in their slippers
Subsequent photos show the crooked remnants of metal shipping containers and the collapsed roof of the warehouse. A local journalist told the British news that there was a strong stench in the air.
Firefighters are also trying to put out the blaze on Sunday. According to fire officials constant explosions have made the firefighting process more difficult.
Moinuddin head of Bangladesh's fire service, said: We have not yet been able to contain the fire because of the presence of this chemical.
Sitakund is only 40 km 25 miles from Chittagong. A city hospital is full of victims. In addition military clinics are helping to treat the wounded.
About 4,000 containers were stored at the Sitakund depot a transit point for containers passing through the port of Chittagong, Bangladesh's second largest city.
The depot contained millions of dollars worth of clothing that was to be exported to Western markets, a local government official said.
Bangladesh is a major supplier of textiles to the West and has become the world's second largest exporter of garments over the past decade.
But weak laws & poor enforcement of regulations are often blamed for such industrial accidents.
Hundreds of deaths have been reported in Bangladesh in recent years due to several major fires. A fire on a ferry in the south of the country last year killed at least 39 people. And earlier this year a factory fire in Roopganj near the capital Dhaka killed at least 52 people.
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In 2020, three workers were killed when an oil tank exploded at another container storage depot in Patinga near Chittagong.
On Sunday the Dhaka Tribune published a list of 12 industrial accidents including fires building collapses and chemical leaks. More than 1,000 people have-been killed in these accidents since 2005.
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