A child was burnt to death and more than 100 shanties were gutted in a fire that broke out at a densely populated slum at Madhubagh in the capital on Saturday morning.
The victim was identified as Sabuj, a boy of two years and a half.
Fire Service and Civil Defence deputy director Jahirul Islam said that the fire originated at about 8:00am at the slum adjacent to Hatirjheel and eleven fire fighting
units brought the fire under control after around one hour and a half.
The reason behind the fire could not be known immediately and a committee was formed to probe the incident, said the official.
Locals said that they came out of houses hearing the scream of slum dwellers at about 8:00am.
Ramjan Ali, a resident in the area, told New Age that the fire might originate from a nearby rickshaw garage from electric short circuit.
Sabuj’s mother Modina Khatun, a housemaid, said she went out of home in the morning leaving her son and six-year old daughter Sathi at the house.
‘Sabuj was sleeping…scary Sathi escaped the flame but Sabuj was burnt alive,’ Modina lamented.
Her husband Hashmat, a rickshaw puller, was not at the home as he went to their village home in Mymensingh.
Fire service could not ascertain the damages in the fire immediately, while witnesses said that more than 100 tin-made houses were burnt to ashes in the flame.
The affected people were seen lamenting in open sky as most of their valuables were burnt to ashes.
Abdul Jalil, a sexagenarian, said that his cash of Tk 80,000 were burnt to ashes in the fire. ‘I saved the money from tutoring school children in the last few years,’
he lamented.
Dhaka district deputy commissioner Shaikh Yusuf Harun, who visited the slam, said that the family of Sabuj would be given Tk 20,000, while the other affected people
would be given Tk 3,000 and 20kg rice each.
He said the administration arranged makeshift shelters for the victims in nearby schools. The administration also would feed the victims for two days.
-With New Age input
