Bangladesh building fire: ‘Doomsday’ inferno leaves Dhaka in shock

DHAKA (AFP, THE DAILY STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK, NYTIMES) - It was just past the closing hour and all the shutters were going down.

The bustle and fuss around the chaotic Chawkbazar was dimming down to give way to the silence of street lamps, a few rickshaws clinking by and the bark of stray dogs.

Mr Dipu had just pulled down the shutters of his family business - a small ready-made garments enterprise - and closed the day's accounts with his two brothers.

That fateful Wednesday (Feb 20) night, they had a visitor as well - his niece.

It was the usual late-night stroll back to the house, if not for a curse that struck and ripped the family apart in one fateful night that would keep the whole city awake in horror.

"We were walking together. I don't know why, but I went ahead of them for some reason. The next thing I heard was the blast," Mr Dipu told The Daily Star.

"The fire was too big. I could not go near it," Mr Dipu said, breaking down in tears.

The fire at Old Dhaka's market hub Chawkbazar that claimed at least 70 lives killed members of Mr Dipu's family - his two brothers and niece.

Their bodies were burned and they suffered an instant death in the blast. The bodies were being kept at Dhaka Medical College's morgue.

According to fire officials, the fire started in a mixed-use building on Wednesday night, when most people were sleeping.

Some witnesses said a compressed gas cylinder, which many people use for cooking, started the fire.

Chemicals, including paints, were stored in shops on the building's ground floor, feeding the flames that engulfed the entire building and spread to others.

Mohammad Salim was walking home from his factory Wednesday night when a series of powerful explosions knocked him to the ground.

"Another man fell on me. His whole body was in flames. As I ran for safety, I heard one explosion after another and saw a woman and her child in flames in a rickshaw," he said from his bed at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

About a quarter of the 45-year-old's body suffered burns, and doctors listed him in critical condition. Nine others at the hospital were also being treated for severe burns.

Haji Mohammad Salahuddin, among those critically injured, told how he saw bolts of fire fall from the sky, setting ablaze a narrow road clogged with cycle rickshaws, vans and cars.

"The explosions were so loud it was like a war. The chemical jars were exploding in the upper floors and fireballs were falling on the streets," he told AFP. "I saw bodies burning all over the road."

Haji Minto, another resident of the area, said it was like "doomsday".

"The flames were so intense that the firefighters could do nothing for the first few hours," he said.

The inferno started in a building at Chawkbazar, a 300-year-old Dhaka neighbourhood, where chemicals for making deodorants and other household uses were illegally stored. It quickly spread to four nearby buildings where many people were trapped.

Hundreds of firefighters rushed to the scene but traffic jams in the narrow streets held them up. It took almost 12 hours to bring the fire under control, as firefighters went through the blackened floors of the buildings, littered with spray cans, looking for bodies.

"Many of the recovered bodies are beyond recognition," Mr Mahfuz Riben, an official of the Fire Service and Civil Defence in Dhaka, told The Associated Press.

Ali Ahmed, Bangladesh national fire chief, said the inferno may have been started by a gas cylinder. The chemicals illegally stored in the buildings only helped speed up the killer blaze through nearby apartments.

Chawkbazar is known as one of the largest trading hubs in the capital, and residents said most of the buildings in the area were used to store goods and chemicals.

"We have warned them. But it fell on deaf ears. You can make good money by renting out building floors for chemical storage," said one resident, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The authorities have ordered a probe into the fire, and a minister said there would be a new crackdown on residential buildings which double up as high-risk chemical stores.

"We'll have a permanent solution soon," Obaidul Quader, the road transport minister, told AFP.

Critics like Abu Naser Khan, head of the POBO citizens lobby group, were doubtful. A previous crackdown was ordered after an earlier tragedy in 2010 in which more than one 100 died.

"The law enforcers were reluctant to have those chemical warehouses moved from that densely populated area," said Khan. "After the warehouse owners, the city corporation and the law enforcers are mainly to blame."

"Our people are using body bags to send them to the hospital morgue - this is a very difficult situation."

Fire officials said the death toll may rise as they continue to search for survivors and bodies.