Devastating Clothing Factory Inferno in Bangladesh Claims a Minimum of 16 Victims
A minimum of 16 persons have perished after a massive fire started at a garment factory in Bangladesh, with emergency services cautioning that the number of victims could increase.
A total of sixteen bodies have been recovered but were incinerated impossible to identify, the fire department said.
Grief-stricken relatives assembled outside the four-level factory in the Mirpur district of Dhaka on Tuesday in search of their family members still unaccounted for.
The inferno, which erupted at the factory around noon, was put out after three hours. But an nearby chemical warehouse kept burning, authorities confirmed.
Up until 21:00 local time (15:00 GMT) on Tuesday, the fire at the chemical warehouse had not been fully extinguished, media reports reported.
Fire department authorities have not ascertained which of the two buildings caught fire first.
According to eyewitnesses, the chemical warehouse contained industrial bleaches, plastic materials and chemical peroxide, all of which can worsen fires. Synthetic materials also produces hazardous smoke when ignited.
Law enforcement and armed forces are still trying to locate the operators of the factory and the warehouse, fire service director the department director told journalists.
An investigation on whether the warehouse was running according to regulations is also currently underway, he added.
Weeping family members gathered outside the burned buildings, many of them clutching photographs of their lost relatives.
Included in the crowd is a man seeking urgently for his daughter, his loved one.
"When I was informed of the fire, I rushed here. But I still haven't found her... I just want my loved one back," he expressed to news media.
The catastrophic occurrence has yet again underscored the hazardous conditions affecting Bangladesh's clothing sector, which provides jobs for millions of workers and is a major contributor to export earnings for the nation.
