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Download PDF At least 20 people were hurt and over 550 shanties were gutted in a devastating fire at a slum at Basila in Mohammadpur in the capital early yesterday.
The fire, believed to be originated from a candle, left around 2,500 dwellers homeless. Their sufferings increased in the pelting rain in the morning.
The injuries were caused when panic-stricken people were rushing out of their shanties for safety.
Eight shops, three auto-tempos and a minibus parked inside a makeshift garage adjacent to the slum were also burnt down in the blaze.
Witnesses said a group of fire-victims turned unruly and pelted stones on a fire fighting vehicle from Lalbagh Station, as it reached the scene an hour after the slum caught fire. Police and Rab personnel deployed there immediately intervened and helped the vehicle resume its work.
Six fire fighters were injured in the incident.
“We were in deep sleep. At around 1:00am, I woke up hearing people’s cry and found that fire had almost engulfed the surrounding houses,” said Barkat Ullah, a rickshaw puller, adding that he, along with his wife and three children got out of the house but could not save any belongings, excepting the clothes they were in.
Several hundred slum dwellers, including women and children, were seen searching through the rubble yesterday afternoon for things they could still keep and use.
Hashmat Ali, 35, was searching for his trunk where he kept some of his savings, in the waste-deep water body on which the shanties were made. “If I find the money it will be of great help to me in this hard time,” he said.
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