Sky-lift fails to reach top floors
Arun Devnath and Emran Hossain
A small crowd lingered into the night, hours after fire fighters battled out the blaze at the Bashundhara City shopping mall yesterday.
Shards of glass glinted in the light streaming from an ’emergency’ lighting unit set up by the Fire Service and Civil Defence (FSCD), just across from the mega-mall that lost six of its floors to the blaze.
Many spectators lined the edge of the road, past Bashundhara City, only to see the folded Bronto ladder that had sky-lifted firemen to hose down the raging blaze earlier in the day.
The Bronto sky-lift (F54 HDT), a truck-mounted hydraulic ladder, was not long enough to reach out to top floors. Many complained that the Fire Service was not equipped enough.
Md Shawkat Hassan, assistant director (store and purchase) of the FSCD, told The Daily Star that the aerial ladder used by the firemen yesterday has a 54 metres outreach.
“For the first time after purchase, we have used this ladder in operation,” he said.
The entire product range of Bronto Skylift includes about 50 models between 16 to 104 metres working height, but the advanced modularity allows countless client-specific variations.
Abdul Khaleque Mollah, who has been with FSCD for 31 years, was a quiet team player in the battle against the inferno.
He was manning the emergency lighting unit, powered by a generator, to light up the site with six bulbs. “This is my duty for today.”
The battle started inside the complex, shortly after the fire broke out.
On the 17th floor of Bashundhara City, black smoke spiralled fast into an elevator as its door opened. Staffers of the mall, overwhelmed by the rushing smoke, failed to operate the elevator in the dark.
“I couldn’t even see the buttons to take the lift down. The lift got stuck. I don’t know what happened next,” said Aminul Islam, a technician of Bashundhara Group.
This happened when Aminul and four others went to the 17th floor to check out the trigger in the fire.
Aminul ended up at Samorita Hospital, with breathing problems. Next to his bed was Abdul Quader, a security guard, still in shock. Quader could only open his eyes after more than an hour of sufferings.
He could not speak as his tongue and throat were burnt. He inhaled black smoke.
Only Aminul was able to speak. He said he had snapped back from unconsciousness and tried to break open the glass of the lift to get out. “I prayed to Allah. I thought I was going to die,” said Aminul.
The fire killed at least seven people, including Baki Billah, a fireman for Bashundhara.
Rescuers took 13 people, mostly with burns, to Samorita Hospital. They were all staffers of Bashundhara Group: security guards, firemen and technicians.
Security guards relayed an alarm by walkie-talkie to their colleagues, sending many into scrambling for a quick exit from the inferno — all at the same time around 2:00pm.
“The tower is on fire” was the only message sent out by the Bashundhara staff.
Some made a dash to extinguish the fire without taking precautionary measures. They were also unaware of the severity of the blaze.
Russell Mia, another injured security guard, said he had run upstairs in a wave of smoke, after the alarm was sounded on walkie-talkie.
“I saw plumes of smoke moving in circles,” he said.
Rushing smoke overpowered Russell in his bid to escape through an opposite route. “The smoke covered me shortly,” he said.
Many of the security guards did not have enough training to act promptly to tackle such a devastating situation.
“I ran upstairs as I thought smoke would not cover the whole of the floor,” said Russell, who had taken training in fire-handling only for 14 days.
Zillur Rahman, an assistant operator for air-conditioning, was among the “unfortunate few” who were trapped on some top floors.
Zillur broke his legs in his escape by wire. Another fireman came rushing down on Zillur by the same wire.
“I could not hold on to it anymore. I fell four floors down.”
Courtesy of www.thedailystar.net
