For the third day, the firefighters are “fighting” with the flames Bangladesh trying to put it down huge fire broke out in a container storage area in Sitakoundaresulting in the death of 41 people.
The fire broke out on Saturday around 21:30 local time (18:30 Greek time), at the BM Container Depot, which is about 40 kilometers from the main port of Chittagong. Hundreds of firefighters rushed to the scene to extinguish it, but an hour later several containers containing chemicals exploded.
Images from the drone show dense columns of smoke and rows of burnt containers as the fire that broke out on Saturday, which caused a huge explosion, continues to rage.
THE fire has been brought under control but has not been completely extinguished, as there is still a risk of some containers containing chemicals exploding, fire officials said.
“About 30 to 40 containers are still burning,” said Harunour Rashid, a fire inspector. «The fire is under control but chemicals are the main problem“, Added as broadcast by the Athenian News Agency.
“Our firefighters are fighting hard but due to the presence of chemicals it is very dangerous to work very close to the spot,” said Anisour Rahman, head of the Chitagong fire department.
Explosions, from which the windows of neighboring buildings were broken, have already complicated the work of firefighters.
Soldiers are now taking part in the firefighting efforts to prevent the chemicals from passing through the nearby canals and reaching the Bay of Bengal.
Officials, meanwhile, have downgraded the death toll to 41 from 49 announced Sunday, with more than 200 injured.
At least nine firefighters were among the dead and 10 police officers were among the injured, said city police official Alauddin Talukder.
Elias Chondri, a Chittagong chief, said the death toll would rise as many of the injured were in critical condition.
The causes of the fire remain unknown
The cause of the fire is unknown at this time. But firefighters suspect it started in a container containing hydrogen peroxide and expanded rapidly.
According to Purnahara Mutsudi, deputy director of the Chitagong Fire Department, which runs the firefighting operation, the 105-acre warehouse “has no fire plan.”
“A security plan predicts how the warehouse will deal with and bring a fire under control. “But there was nothing,” he said.
“Besides, we were not informed about the existence of chemical products. “If they had done so, the number of victims would have been much smaller,” he complained.
BM Container Depot is a company founded in 2012 by businessmen from Bangladesh and the Netherlands. The warehouse employs about 600 people.
The damaged containers contained millions of dollars worth of clothes
Miminur Rahman, a district governor in Chittagong, said many of the containers contained millions of dollars worth of clothes to be exported to Western countries.
“Almost all containers for export and import have been burned,” said Ruhul Amin Sikder, secretary of the BICA (Bangladesh Inland Container Association).
The warehouse contained about 800 containers full of products for export, about 500 for imported products and another 3,000 that were empty, Sinder added.
“About 85% of the products to be exported were clothes,” he noted.
The company that owns the warehouse announced that it will offer compensation of one million taka (approximately 10,500 euros) to the family of each dead worker.
Bangladesh has become the second largest exporter of clothing in recent decades, but its infrastructure is substandard, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said this year.
About 90% of Bangladesh’s nearly $ 100 billion in annual trade goes through Chittagong. In this large port the activity has returned from the end of 2021 thanks to the global economic recovery after the pandemic.
Fires are common in Bangladesh, where safety regulations are not respected.
In July 2021, 54 people lost their lives in a fire that broke out in a huge food processing plant located outside the capital Dhaka. In February 2020, 70 people were killed in another fire that destroyed several apartment buildings in Dhaka.
Source: News Beast
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