Fire leaves thousands homeless
DELHI • At least 10,000 people were left homeless Sunday after a huge blaze destroyed most of a slum area of Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital.
The fire swept through the crowded slum of Mirpur, destroying thousands of homes, most of them poorly constructed from rudimentary materials.
Officials said that the fire broke out early Saturday and left around 2,000 mostly tin shacks in smouldering ruins. The ultimate number of people without homes could rise as high as 50,000.
“I could not salvage a single thing. I don’t know what I will do,” 58-year-old Abdul Hamid, who ran a tea stall inside the slum, told the AFP news agency.
Video footage showed heavy plumes of smoke billowing all around the slum area, just a few kilometres from the country’s main cricket stadium.
Fire officials scrambled to get access to enough water and struggled for three hours to douse the flames, said Anwar Hossain, senior station manager of Mirpur fire station.
Authorities eventually got the blaze under control and no one was killed, although several people had minor injuries, firefighters said.
Many residents — largely low-income garment factory workers — were not in the slum as they had left their homes to celebrate the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday with their families. “Otherwise, the damage would have been bigger,” police chief Golam Rabbani said.
Around 10,000 people have taken refuge in temporary shelters at nearby schools, which had closed for the weeklong holiday.
“We are providing them with food, water, mobile toilets and electricity supply,” said city official Shafiul Azam, adding that authorities were trying to find permanent accommodation.
Some families erected tarpaulins to shelter them from bouts of rain during the monsoon season, but the wet conditions have turned the fields muddy.
Fires are frequent in Dhaka, with many blaming poorly enforced safety measures. At least 100 people have been killed so far this year in fires across the densely populated city.
Some residents of Mirpur said they suspect the fire may have originated from a short circuit, or from a stove.
Shathi Akther said she rushed out from her home with two children when she saw the flames, the Dhaka Tribune reported. Her husband, Mohammed Shohag, a small trader, helped to get them out, but he was now missing.
Saidur Rahman, a rickshaw puller, escaped the blaze. He lived with 10 family members in the slum. “Everyone was in the same situation; nobody was able to come out with anything. We are poor people. I do not know what to do, or where to go,” he said.