DHAKA: At least six people have been died after a fire swept through a building that housed a restaurant and a small plastic manufacturing unit in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, firefighters said on Monday.

The fire broke out on the ground floor of the three-storey building at about noontime at Kamalbagh in the old part of the city,firefighting official Anwarul Islam said.

He said the firefighters took more than two hours to douse the blaze,which spread on the other floors and gutted the entire building as the fire engines struggled to enter congested site which is criss-crossed by narrow lanes.

“We have found six bodies inside the debris,” Islam said. The bodies found at the accident site are beyond recognition, he said adding two more workers of the restaurant have gone missing.

The factory, used to produce plastic toys, was located on the top floor of the building, firefighter Shahjahan Sikder said, according to local residents. Two other floors were used to store plastic products, he added.

Deaths from fire and industrial disasters are frequent in Bangladesh.

At least 49 people were killed in a massive fire at a container depot in the eastern Bangladeshi district of Chattogram in June this year.

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. — dpa