Bangladesh News

One person was killed and 20 others injured after a blaze hit Shahjalal Complex at Malibagh intersection in the capital yesterday afternoon.

The dead, identified as Saiful Islam, 22, was a resident of Badda. He used to work for a bus company, Falgun, at the Badda ticket counter.

Of the injured, 11 were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital while the others to different city hospitals and clinics.

The fire originated at a computer shop on the ground floor of the twelve-storey building around 3:30pm that released a thick cloud of smoke, which dispersed throughout the building choking the staircase, witnesses said.

Following the incident, over a hundred people of the building were panicked into jumping off different floors that entailed the death and injuries of the victims, they added. Some in desperation also jumped across to rooftops of adjacent buildings and got hurt.

Besides, witnesses said a few people had fallen sick after inhaling smoke.

The shop, ICT Enterprise, adjacent to the staircase on the ground floor, might have caught fire from an electrical short circuit, fire brigade sources said.

Seven fire fighting units were able to restrict the fire to the shop and doused it in an hour, they mentioned. They also rescued some people trapped inside the building during the operation.

Kohinur Akter Lucky, one of the injured, said she was at her work point in the office of a buying house on the fourth floor during the incident and it took her by surprise when her room got suddenly covered with smoke.

None could use the staircase to go down as heat and smoke produced from the fire almost choked the staircase, she noted.

Meanwhile, a fire gutted four shops and seven scrap (garment by-products) depots at Badda in the capital yesterday.

The fire broke out at the shops of Khawaja Bazar in Santarkul around 11:25am and five firefighting units from Baridhara and Tejgaon put out the blaze around 1:15pm.

Deputy Director Masudur Rahman of the Fire Brigade and Civil Defence coordinating the fire fighting work told The Daily Stat that the fire might have originated from a burning cigarette