Firefighters in Dhaka, Bangladesh, estimated on Friday March 1 that security failures had fueled the fire which broke out the day before in a restaurant in the capital and spread to a building, causing at least 45 dead and dozens injured, hospitalized in critical condition.
The fire broke out on Thursday evening at a popular restaurant located at the foot of a seven-story building housing other restaurants in the upscale Bailey Road district of Dhaka. It was fanned by numerous gas cylinders stored in stairwells and restaurant kitchens, said fire department operations director Rezaul Karim.
Questioned by journalists on Friday morning, firefighters hypothesized that one of the gas cylinders, catching fire, had accelerated the fire. According to Main Uddin, the head of the national fire service, the building presented significant breaches of safety standards. “It did not have at least two staircases or emergency exits,” he explained to Agence France-Presse (AFP). Most people died from asphyxiation. »
Police officers were seen inside the destroyed building on Friday morning, inspecting the rubble, hours after the government ordered an investigation into the cause of the disaster.
A toll that could increase
Concerning the victims, an injured person succumbed to his injuries in hospital on Friday morning, bringing the death toll to at least 45, police inspector Bacchu Mia told AFP. “The condition of 15 to 16 injured people is critical,” he added. Dhaka University Hospital and another nearby facility specializing in the treatment of burn victims admitted at least 40 injured people. “None of them are out of danger,” Health Minister Samanta Lal Sen said earlier after visiting these establishments. In total, 75 people were rescued, according to a press release from the firefighters, who brought the fire under control in two hours.
The fire broke out on Thursday at 9:50 p.m. (3:50 p.m. in Paris) and quickly spread through the floors, trapping many people. “We were on the sixth floor when we started seeing smoke coming through the stairs. Many people rushed to go upstairs,” said Sohel, a restaurant manager. “We used a water pipe to get down. Some of us were injured while jumping,” he continued. Others were stuck on the roof and calling for help.
Fires in apartment buildings and industrial complexes are common in Bangladesh due to lax enforcement of safety regulations. The worst the country experienced occurred in 2012, in the suburbs of Dhaka, in a textile factory where clothing was manufactured for export to Western countries: the disaster killed at least 111 workers and left more than 200 injured. In February 2019, 70 people died when a fire spread across several apartment buildings in Dhaka. Finally, in July 2021, the fire that devastated a food factory in Rupganj, an industrial town near the capital, killed at least 52 workers, including children.
