Chemical fireballs rain down in Dhaka inferno
● Harrowing scenes as series of powerful explosions leave dozens dead
Chemical fireballs rained down and set rickshaws ablaze, while explosions rocked the streets and pedestrians engulfed in flames ran for their lives, witnesses said after an inferno in a densely populated Dhaka neighbourhood.
Dozens were killed in the latest fire disaster to hit the Bangladeshi capital, which gutted four crumbling apartment buildings in the old city where chemicals were stored illegally.
Charred husks of cars, rickshaws and vans littered the narrow streets along with hundreds of spray cans fired out by the explosions.
“We found 24 bodies in one corner of a building and another nine at a pharmacy where the shutters were down,” firefighter Shariful Islam said.
“They thought they would survive by bringing down the shutters.”
Witnesses told of harrowing scenes as people became trapped by flames at a bridal party and in restaurants.
Mohammad Salim was walking home from his factory on Wednesday night when a series of powerful explosions knocked him to the ground.
“Another man fell on me. His whole body was in flames,” he said from the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
“As I ran for safety, I heard one explosion after another and saw a woman and her child in flames in a rickshaw.”
About a quarter of the 45year-old’s body suffered burns, and doctors listed him in critical condition.
Nine others at the hospital were also being treated for severe burns.
Haji Mohammad Salahuddin, among those critically injured, told how he saw bolts of fire fall from the sky, setting ablaze a narrow road clogged with cycle rickshaws and cars.
“The explosions were so loud it was like a war. The chemical jars were exploding and fireballs were falling on the streets,” he said.
Resident Haji Minto said it was like doomsday.
“The flames were so intense that the firefighters could do nothing for the first few hours,” he said.
The inferno started in a building at Chawkbazar, a 300year-old Dhaka neighbourhood, where chemicals for making deodorants and other household uses were illegally stored.
It quickly spread to four nearby buildings where many people were trapped.
Hundreds of firefighters rushed to the scene but traffic jams in the narrow streets held them up.
It took almost 12 hours to bring the fire under control, as firefighters went through the blackened floors of the build- ings, littered with spray cans, looking for bodies.
Chawkbazar is known as one of the largest trading hubs in the capital, and residents said most of the buildings in the area were used to store goods and chemicals.
Authorities have ordered a probe into the fire, and a minister said there would be a crackdown on residential buildings which double up as high-risk chemical stores.