Surveillance video reveals devastating force of blaze

DHAKA, Bangladesh — The explosion was fast and furious.

On a busy street in Chawkbazar in the oldest part of Bangladesh’s capital, restaurant cooks stood outside preparing roti bread on tandoor grills as people whizzed by on motorcycles, auto-rickshaws and on foot.

Suddenly, flames consumed the scene in surveillance-camera footage local media published Saturday of the deadly fire in Dhaka this past week. The blaze killed at least 67 people and injured 50 others.

On Saturday, Bangladeshi Prime minister Sheikh Hasina visited some of the dozens of people injured in the fire, while investigators said they had found a huge stock of flammable materials stashed in the basement of the five-story building where the blaze began.

Hasina said outside a burn unit of the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital that she wants all the chemical warehouses removed from the oldest part of Dhaka, a 400-yearold area cramped with apartments, shops and warehouses.

Government zoning regulations prohibit industrial activities in residential buildings. A drive in May to clear warehouses and makeshift stalls blocking narrow alleyways in Chawkbazar and neighboring districts was met with protests by business owners and residents.

Obaidul Quader, general secretary of Hasina’s ruling Awami League party and a Cabinet minister, said in Chawkbazar on Saturday that there would be “no compromise” in removing the warehouses from the area and that “a new journey has started through learning lessons from previous mistakes.”

Debashish Bardhan, a deputy director of the Fire Service and Civil Defense, told the Associated Press that investigators discovered a cache of combustible chemicals like drums full of dye pigments and rolls of plastic sheets on Friday in the basement of the building, and that the fire could have been far more devastating if it had spread to that area.

Bardhan, a member of one of the fire investigation committees, said they were still collecting evidence from the scene to determine how the fire started and why it spread so quickly.

Police have said that they are seeking up to a dozen suspects in connection with the fire and could charge them with negligence.

Julhas Alam is an Associated Press writer.