Dhaka gas blast toll rises to 24
THE death toll from a gas explosion that tore through a Bangladesh mosque rose to 24, officials said last Sunday (6), as rescuers described how survivors jumped into a nearby open sewer to escape the flames.
Worshippers were at Friday evening prayers when the blast sent a ball of fire through the mosque in the central district of Narayanganj near the capital Dhaka, emergency services said.
Eight more people, including the mosque’s imam and muezzin, died overnight taking the toll to 24, said Samanta Lal Sen, a spokesman for a specialist burns hospital in Dhaka.
Forty-five people in were injured, police said.
Mohammad Salim said he rushed to the mosque after the explosion, adding the shock waves shook the neighbourhood.
He said burnt worshippers threw themselves into an open sewer next to the mosque.
“They wailed ‘save, save us’ as
total they rolled in the sewer water to cool their burnt bodies. Their faces were charred and were beyond recognition,” said Salim, who lost two cousins and a brother-in-law in the explosion. “I lifted three of them out of water. As I touched them, their skin peeled out from their bodies.”
The committee running the mosque alleged the state-run gas transmission firm had earlier demanded a bribe to fix the leaks quickly. “A probe body is looking into how the explosion occurred and whether there was any negligence on our part,” the company’s managing director Ali Mohammad Al Mamun said.
Investigators suspected a spark from an air conditioner – which came on after a power cut – started the blaze.
Bangladesh’s energy minister Nasrul Hamid, who has visited the site, has ordered a probe into the committee’s allegations, a spokesman for his ministry, Mir Aslam, said.