Dhaka, Mar. 1, (dpa/GNA) – At least 44 people have been killed and dozens others injured after a fire broke out in a commercial building in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, officials said.
The fire broke out at the seven-storey Green Cozy Cottage, which houses many restaurants and clothing shops, on Dhaka’s central Bailey Road on Thursday evening, Brigadier General Main Uddin, chief of the Fire Service and Civil Defence emergency department told reporters at the scene.
The firefighters retrieved the bodies, mostly restaurant guests, from the building after they took more than three hours to douse the blaze, he said.
Three people died at the scene while the rest died at health facilities, he said, adding that firefighters rescued 75 people from inside the building.
Health Minister Samanta Lal Sen said the bodies of 43 victims were kept at the state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Sheikh Hasina Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute in Dhaka.
Twenty-two people are said to be in critical condition, he said.
Bangladesh police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun said another person had died after they were taken to a nearby police hospital.
The reason behind was initially unclear, he added. The Fire Service and Civil Defence department launched an investigation to determine the extent of damage and the cause of the incident.
Department head Uddin said a gas stove at one of the ground floor restaurants might have caused the accident.
Shoppers and restaurant guests were trapped inside the building as flames and smoke engulfed the building, he said, adding that some managed to escape by climbing down the external water pipeline.
A few people jumped from the second floor, according to a witness.
Deaths from fires at multi-storey building are frequent in Bangladesh due to lax monitoring of fire-safety rules.
A fire that swept through a six-storey food processing factory near Dhaka killed at least 52 people, many of whom were trapped behind a locked door, in July 2021.
In February 2019, at least 70 people were killed and 55 others injured after a fire broke out in a densely populated residential area at Chawk Bazar in the old part of Dhaka.
GNA