3 critically burnt; locals of Old Dhaka revisit Nimtoli nightmare
A fire at a chemicals storehouse left three people seriously injured in a residential area of Lalbagh in Old Dhaka yesterday.
The wounded were admitted to the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital in a critical condition.
The blaze started at about 2:30pm on the ground floor of the two-storey chemicals storehouse on Jagannath Saha Road, only four days after the government extended the deadline for shifting chemicals warehouses from the city’s old part to a safer location.
The government took the initiative a few days after 124 people died on June 3 in a devastating fire fuelled by combustible substances at a chemicals warehouse in densely populated Nimtoli in Old Dhaka. It directed traders to move chemicals storehouses from the area to a safer location by August 17.
Locals said it could have been another disaster like Nimtoli had the fire touched the flammable substances stored on the first floor of the factory that packages rubber solution.
They got panicked seeing a strong blaze spiralling upward from the two-storey building. The factory staff doused the flame using fire extinguisher, sand and water, said locals.
A huge amount of chemicals had been found inside the factory, said Abul Kalam Azad, officer-in-charge of Lalbagh Police Station. The cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained.
The factory staff did not inform police or fire fighters about the incident, he said adding that they rushed to the spot on information from a few locals.
Factory owner Gazi Shafiullah Jewel, 32, who received burns in the incident, claimed that the fire was started by an electric short-circuit while carpenter Nitai Mandol was working on the ground floor of the factory.
Jewel received 52 percent and Nitai 70 percent burns to their bodies.
Anu Mia, a worker of the factory, had received burns on the entire body, said Touhid Belal, a physician at the hospital.
The three were injured as they rushed to douse the fire, said a staff of the factory.
Meanwhile, Shahida Begum, 35, another victim of Nimtoli fire, died yesterday at the Combined Military Hospital in the capital, raising the death toll to 124.
Shahida with 40 percent burns to her body had been receiving treatment at the hospital for over two and a half months.
She had lost her son Samir Ahmed in the blaze.
