DHAKA: At least 34 people have been killed in a massive fire, believed to have been triggered by explosions, at a container depot in eastern Bangladesh, officials and firefighters said on Sunday.
The fire broke out at BM Inland Container Depot, a Dutch-Bangladesh joint venture, near the south-eastern port city of Chattogram on Saturday night after some explosions were reported, firefighting official Anisur Rahman said.
An overnight effort by firefighters was not enough to bring the flames under control. Small explosions of containers full of chemicals made the firefighting efforts difficult, he said, adding that firefighters were among the dead.
He said the firefighters traced chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide in many of the containers inside the import-export depot, located nearly 300 kilometres south-east of the capital Dhaka, and 20 kilometres away from the country’s major port of Chittagong.
Army troops were called in to join the rescue operation, Rahman said. He could not give any reason for the fire.
Alauddin Talukder, a police officer at Chittagong’s Medical College Hospital, said at least 32 bodies had been brought to the morgue by noon time on Sunday.
Five of them were identified as members of the Fire Service and Civil Defence department, said officer Shahjahan Sikder.
Television footages show firefighters trying to douse the flames using hosepipes at one point, while explosions in other parts ignited fires inside the depot.
Deaths from fire and industrial disasters are frequent in Bangladesh.
Last year, almost 40 people were killed when a fire swept through a passenger ferry in December, while 52 died after a blaze trapped workers in a Dhaka food processing factory in July.
The director of the B M Container Depot, Mujibur Rahman, said the fire’s cause was still unknown. He added the facility employs about 600 people. Fires are common in Bangladesh due to lax enforcement of safety rules. In July 2021, 54 people died when a blaze ripped through a massive food-processing factory outside the capital Dhaka. In February 2020, 70 people were killed when another fire engulfed several Dhaka apartment blocks. — dpa
