Deadly Apparel Factory Fire in Bangladesh Claims a Minimum of 16 Victims
No fewer than 16 people have perished after a massive fire started at a apparel factory in Bangladesh, with authorities warning that the number of victims could climb.
16 bodies have been retrieved but were incinerated beyond recognition, the fire department said.
Grief-stricken relatives gathered outside the four-storey factory in Mirpur, Dhaka on that day in seeking their family members still missing.
The inferno, which started at the factory around lunchtime, was put out after multiple hours. But an adjacent chemical warehouse kept burning, emergency services said.
Up until 21:00 local time (15:00 GMT) that day, the fire at the chemical warehouse had not been fully extinguished, journalistic accounts reported.
Fire department authorities have not established which of the two buildings caught fire first.
Per bystanders, the chemical warehouse stored chemical bleaching agents, plastic materials and industrial peroxide, all of which can accelerate fires. Synthetic materials also produces toxic fumes when ignited.
Law enforcement and armed forces are still searching for the owners of the factory and the warehouse, fire service director Mohammad Tajul Islam Chowdhury told reporters.
An investigation on whether the warehouse was functioning with proper authorization is also ongoing, he mentioned.
Crying family members waited outside the charred buildings, many of them grasping photographs of their unaccounted for relatives.
Included in the crowd is a man searching desperately for his daughter, Farzana Akhter.
"When I was informed of the fire, I rushed here. But I still cannot locate her... I just want my loved one back," he expressed to journalists.
The catastrophic occurrence has once again highlighted the safety concerns affecting Bangladesh's apparel manufacturing, which provides jobs for numerous of workers and is a major provider of foreign revenue for the country.
