Bangladesh factory fire: at least 52 dead

At least 52 people died and around 30 were injured in a fire that is active in a food and beverage factory in Bangladesh. Some workers jumped out of the windows to escape the flames.

The total number of employees who were in place is not yet known. six-story building in Rupganj, an industrial town near the capital, Dhaka. There are usually over 1,000 but many managed to escape when the incident started.

On a road near the factory, where the fire was still not under control 24 hours after its outbreak, there was clashes between hundreds of relatives of employees, protesting against the slowness of relief operations, and the security forces.

“They threw stones at the police and the police fired tear gas to disperse them», Told the agency AFP the head of the local administration, Moustain Billah.

Building fires and collapses are relatively common in Bangladesh, a poor country in South Asia, especially in its large textile industry, due to the non-compliance with safety rules. The reforms promised by the government in this area are slow to materialize.

Police and witnesses said the blaze started around 5:00 p.m. (11:00 GMT) Thursday at Hashem Food and Beverage, which manufactures soft, videos Yes juice fruits, among other products.

The initial death toll was three, then 49 lifeless bodies were found on the third floor.

“The workers there couldn’t get on the roof because the access to the stairs have been closed. And they couldn’t come down because the lower floors were engulfed in flames, ”said Debashish Bardhan, a spokesperson for the fire department.

Chemical products

The charred bodies were taken to the morgues by ambulances, while people in the nearby streets she looked horrified and screamed.

At least 30 people were injured and some jumped out of windows on upper floors as the fire spread rapidlysaid police inspector Cheikh Kabirul Islam.

Firefighters they saved 25 people from the roof of the building. “When the fire is under control, we will start looking for survivors inside the building,” the firefighter spokesman said.

Dhaka fire chief Dinu Moni Sharma said the fire had spread quickly due to the presence of products chemical products Yes plastics highly flammable in the factory.

Angry unions

Mamun, a worker, said that he and 13 other people ran to the roof when the fire started downstairs, flooding the whole building with thick black smoke. “The firefighters brought us down using a rope“, He explained.

Many families feared the worst. “We came here because my niece was not answering our calls. And now his phone doesn’t even give a signal. We are worried, ”said Nazrul Islam.

Union officials criticized the authorities for insufficient application of security measures. “The government has failed to make the slightest improvement in workplace safety in thousands of factories, resulting in the preventable deaths of many workers,” said Kalpon Alter, one of them.

At least 70 people died in february 2019 in one big fire who demolished several buildings in Yes, where they were illegally stored chemical products.

And in April 2013, the Rana Plaza sewing workshop collapsed like a house of cards, killing at least 1,138 workers, a tragedy that sparked global unrest.

(With information from AFP)

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