Devastating Clothing Factory Blaze in Bangladesh Takes no Fewer than 16 Victims
A minimum of 16 individuals have perished after a massive fire erupted at a clothing factory in Bangladesh, with emergency services cautioning that the death toll could rise.
Sixteen bodies have been found but were incinerated impossible to identify, the firefighters stated.
Grief-stricken relatives converged outside the four-storey factory in Mirpur, Dhaka on that day in search of their dear ones still unaccounted for.
The inferno, which erupted at the factory around noon, was extinguished after three hours. But an adjacent chemical warehouse continued to burn, officials said.
Until 21:00 local time (15:00 GMT) on Tuesday, the fire at the chemical warehouse had not been fully extinguished, journalistic accounts indicated.
Emergency responders have not established which of the two buildings ignited initially.
Per bystanders, the chemical warehouse housed chemical bleaching agents, synthetic polymers and hydrogen peroxide, all of which can intensify fires. Synthetic materials also emits toxic fumes when combusted.
Police and military officers are still trying to locate the owners of the factory and the warehouse, fire department chief Mohammad Tajul Islam Chowdhury told the media.
An probe on whether the warehouse was functioning with proper authorization is also in progress, he noted.
Crying family members waited outside the fire-damaged buildings, many of them holding photographs of their unaccounted for relatives.
Included in the crowd is a man seeking urgently for his daughter, his loved one.
"When I learned of the fire, I hurried to the scene. But I still haven't found her... I just want my loved one back," he told reporters.
The catastrophic occurrence has another time emphasized the safety concerns affecting Bangladesh's garment industry, which provides jobs for millions of workers and is a major provider of export earnings for the South Asian economy.
