Most Old Town dwellings turn into death traps

Factories, chemical stores housed in cramped residential buildings
More than 60 per cent of nearly two lakh small factories operating without permission caused 219 fire incidents in the Old Town of Dhaka in the last couple of years killing 220 people, an official of the Fire Service and Civil Defence said on Monday.
In the densely populated Old Town, thousands of families live in cramped conditions in buildings a large number of which
also house factories operating in violation of laws. Such small factories are issued trade licence on condition that they will be set up at least 200 metres from residential quarters but in most of the cases they violate law, the official said.
Hundreds of factories, including plastic and shoe manufacturing units and other workshops spread
all over the Old Town,
and they use different chemicals, including inflammable substances, for production, said
Dhaka City Corporation inspector Mohammad Jahangir Alam.
He said highly inflammable ethanol, methanol, hydrogen peroxide, lubricant oil, spirit, caustic powder, adhesives and plastic granules are stored in such small factories.
At least 118 people were killed and 150 others injured in a building inferno at Nabab Katara of Nimtali in Old Town
of Dhaka Thursday night. Investigators believe chemicals stored in a factory housed in the building might have caused the fire.
At least 10 people were killed in a fire originating from a chemical shop on the ground floor at a house in Aga Sadek Road on August 3, 2008.
At least 30 houses were gutted in a fire that spread from a shoe factory in east Islambagh on the fringe of Dhaka on December 4, 2008.
Saif Mohammad Esrail, a resident of 67, Nabab Katra at Nimtoli, who survived Thursday night’s deadly fire along with his two minor nephews, said, ‘More than 100 chemical stores and workshops are located in Chankharpul, Nimtoli and Begum Bazar areas and they are still operating even after the death of 118 people in the fire.’
Esrail alleged that more than 100 illegal fuel shops buying and selling stolen fuel from private cars usually use plastic containers for carrying petrol, octane, diesel and kerosene with the help of police.
According to the Metropolitan Authority Rules, one needs to obtain trade licence for doing a business in the metropolitan area. But most of the traders in the Old Town do not have licence and run their business by bribing dishonest officials.
The DCC’s senior inspector Mohammad Rashidunnabi Haque, working in Lalbagh zone for the last seven years, told New Age, ‘There are hardly any houses in Sutrapur, Lalbagh, Kotwali, Kamrangir Char and Hazaribagh that do not have a workshop or a warehouse.’
According to the Fire Service and Civil Defence authorities, most of the deadly fire in the Old Town of Old Dhaka had originated from commercial establishments housed on the ground floors of residential buildings.
Fire Service deputy director Bharat Chandra Biswas said fire risks had increased in recent times as makeshift factories were mushrooming in the crowded residential areas.
‘Fire engines, with water, hoses, ladders and other equipment, quite often find it difficult to reach the spots in the dark alleyways,’ he added.

Courtesy of NewAge