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AFP
Dhaka
Fire and explosions that ripped through apartment buildings packed with illegal chemical stores killed at least 70 people in the Bangladeshi capital which was left stunned by its latest disaster.
The inferno started in a building where chemicals for deodorants and other household uses were stocked amid apartments. It spread at lightning speed to four nearby blocks, the fire service said.
Chemical fireballs set ablaze the clogged narrow streets even engulfing passengers on rickshaws in flames. Witnesses told of harrowing scenes as people became trapped by flames at a bridal party and in restaurants.
Bangladesh fire chief Ali Ahmed gave a death toll of 70. Doctors said at least 10 of the scores of injured were in critical condition. Hundreds of firefighters who took almost 12 hours to bring the fire under control went through the blackened floors of the building, littered with spray cans, looking for bodies.
“We found 24 bodies in one corner of a building and another nine bodies at a pharmacy where the shutters were down,” firefighter Shariful Islam said at the scene. “They thought they would survive by bringing down the shutters.”
The fire started late Wednesday night in the Chawkbazar trading district in the old Mughal part of the capital.
Dhaka
Fire and explosions that ripped through apartment buildings packed with illegal chemical stores killed at least 70 people in the Bangladeshi capital which was left stunned by its latest disaster.
The inferno started in a building where chemicals for deodorants and other household uses were stocked amid apartments. It spread at lightning speed to four nearby blocks, the fire service said.
Chemical fireballs set ablaze the clogged narrow streets even engulfing passengers on rickshaws in flames. Witnesses told of harrowing scenes as people became trapped by flames at a bridal party and in restaurants.
Bangladesh fire chief Ali Ahmed gave a death toll of 70. Doctors said at least 10 of the scores of injured were in critical condition. Hundreds of firefighters who took almost 12 hours to bring the fire under control went through the blackened floors of the building, littered with spray cans, looking for bodies.
“We found 24 bodies in one corner of a building and another nine bodies at a pharmacy where the shutters were down,” firefighter Shariful Islam said at the scene. “They thought they would survive by bringing down the shutters.”
The fire started late Wednesday night in the Chawkbazar trading district in the old Mughal part of the capital.
