Deadly Garment Factory Blaze in the South Asian nation Has Taken a Minimum of 16 Lives
At least 16 persons have lost their lives after a massive fire erupted at a clothing factory in Bangladesh, with emergency services warning that the fatality count could climb.
Sixteen bodies have been retrieved but were charred beyond recognition, the fire department said.
Distraught relatives gathered outside the four-storey factory in the Mirpur district of Dhaka on Tuesday in looking for their family members still unaccounted for.
The blaze, which started at the factory around noon, was put out after three hours. But an adjacent chemical warehouse continued to burn, officials 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 service officials have not established which of the two buildings ignited initially.
According to eyewitnesses, the chemical warehouse housed industrial bleaches, plastic and hydrogen peroxide, all of which can accelerate fires. Polymer products also releases hazardous smoke when combusted.
Law enforcement and armed forces are still searching for the owners of the factory and the warehouse, fire service director the department director informed reporters.
An probe on whether the warehouse was functioning with proper authorization is also in progress, he noted.
Weeping family members stood outside the burned buildings, many of them grasping photographs of their lost relatives.
Included in the crowd is a man seeking urgently for his daughter, Farzana Akhter.
"When I learned of the fire, I rushed here. But I still haven't found her... I just want my daughter back," he stated to journalists.
The catastrophic occurrence has another time highlighted the security issues facing Bangladesh's clothing sector, which provides jobs for numerous of workers and is a major source of economic income for the South Asian economy.
