Complex’s water reservoir found empty
Helemul Alam
Even though Bashundhara City building in the capital had several fire hydrants inside, the building’s reservoir had no water. This helped the fire to spread and claim the lives of seven persons yesterday.
Director General of Fire Service and Civil Defence Abu Nayeem Md Shahidullah said the hydrants were useless as there was no water in the tank. “We initially had to pump water from nearby Unique Trade Centre,” he said.
Prof Nizam Uddin Ahmed of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) said the fire hydrants not functioning and combustible items inside helped the fire spread fast. “If the hydrants worked, the fire might not have spread so fast,” he said.
A fire service official said Bashundhara City’s own fire fighters had very little training and they could not control the fire.
Architect Foyez Ullah, who was involved in the construction of Bashundhara City, said Bashundhara had central fire-management system with all the modern fire-safety equipment for a tall building but those were not functioning at that time.
Former fire service high official Selim Newaz Bhuiyan visited the spot and said since it was the weekend the electricity might have failed and the fire detectors might have malfunctioned, both of which could have helped the fire spread.
It was very fortunate that it happened on a Friday, otherwise the death toll would have been higher, said Prof Nizam.
Even though the shopping mall was open but people were able to evacuate since the fire started in one of the top floors. The bottom eight floors of the 20-storey building house the mall.
The building is centrally air-conditioned, which also helped the fire spread rapidly, he said.
The fire originated on the 18th floor around 1:50pm and spread to 19th, 20th and 17th, 16th and 15th floors by 4:00pm.
However, the northern end of some of the floors caught fire around 5:10pm and they were on fire till 9:00pm.
Prof Mehdi Ahmed Ansari of Buet said a top official of Bashundhara City recently at a seminar showed how well the mall was protected against fire. The official did not talk about the rest of the floors, Prof Mehdi said.
There could have been lack of proper fire-safety gear in the upper floors, which may have helped the fire spread, he said.
Suggesting that use of steel and glass be discouraged in high-rise structures, Mehdi said fire spreads fast in buildings constructed with steel and glass. He said the authorities concerned should discourage the use of steel and glass in construction of buildings over five-storey high.
A huge number of skyscrapers and shopping malls have been constructed with steel and glass, which is very risky, he said.
He said the fire spread fast in the southern part of the building as it had more steel and glass than the northern part of the building.
Courtesy of www.thedailystar.net
