Bangladesh HORROR fire kills at least 70 - death toll COULD RISE warn officials
AT LEAST 70 people were killed by a fire in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka on Wednesday, with authorities warning the casualty figure could rise.
The fire broke out in the Chawkbazar area of Dhaka at about 10.40pm (16:40 GMT) on Wednesday. The blaze began at an apartment building which was partly used to store chemicals. According to a fire services chief it may have been triggered by a gas cylinder.
Earlier Julfikar Rahman, a director of the local Fire Service and Civil Defence, commented: “So far 56 bodies have been recovered.
“The number could rise further as searching is still continuing.
“There was a traffic jam when the fire broke out. So people could not escape.”
More than 200 firefighters responded to the incident.
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Earlier reports had put the death toll at ten.
According to a police inspector based at Dhaka Medical College Hospital another 45 people were injured, four of them critically.
After the fire began it spread quickly to nearby buildings according to local media.
The inferno consumed four neighbouring warehouses which stored body sprays and plastic granules.
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A second fire official said the “highly combustible” chemicals caused the blaze to intensify.
He commented: “It will take time. This is not like any other fire.”
In 2010 more than 120 were killed in Dhaka after a fire raced through a building being used to hold chemicals.
The incident was one of the five worst fire disasters in the city’s history.