At least 65 people were killed and more than 100 hurt when a
fire swept through a locked textile factory crowded with
night-shift workers in southern Bangladesh.
Up to 500 people, mainly women, were believed to be working in
the KTS Composite Textile factory in the southern city of
Chittagong when the fire broke out on Thursday night, local fire
chief Rashedul Islam said.
Firefighters had found the main entrance to the factory locked,
he said, and were forced to rescue trapped workers by breaking open
windows and using ropes.
The fire, believed to have been started by a short circuit,
whipped quickly through the four-storey building because of stacks
of yarn lying on the floors and encroaching onto stairways, making
it impossible for some workers to escape.
"We have just managed to put out the fire," a weary Islam said.
The building was still smouldering, he added, but rescue operations
were over.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia was to have visited the gutted
factory later on Friday, an official said.
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Several platoons of army troops helped in the all-night rescue
after firefighters struggled to contain the blaze with their
limited equipment.
Immediately after the fire, the elite Rapid Action Battalion
(RAB) raided homes of the owners of the factory after primary
findings showed the fire was due to faulty safety measures,
Chittagong RAB chief Hasinur Rahman said.
"The owners went into hiding after the fire," he said.
Witnesses said an explosion preceded the fire.
"The main gate was locked when we heard a loud noise followed by
fire and an electricity cut," a worker who escaped the inferno told
ATN Bangla television.
"Some neighbors cut open the window grilles to help us out of
the factory."
The toll might have been higher, but people working in
neighboring factories brought in bamboo ladders and ropes to rescue
those trapped on the upper floors, factory security guard Ful Mia
said.
He said about 1,000 people are employed at the factory, but many
were on their dinner breaks when the fire broke out.
"We have searched every room of the factory. We don't think
there are any more dead bodies inside," Colonel Munshi Mizanur
Rahman of the Bangladesh army said.
Salauddin Ahmed, a doctor at the emergency ward of Chittagong
Medical College Hospital, said about 60 people were hospitalized,
"mostly with burn injuries and some with broken ribs after they
jumped from the upper floors."
He said at least 25 people were in critical condition. About 40
injured people were treated at the scene.
One witness said he saw people jumping from the third floor to
escape the blaze.
Bangladesh is home to about 4,000 textile factories, which have
been plagued by accidents owing to poor safety standards.
Textiles are Bangladesh's biggest export, bringing in nearly 80
percent of its total foreign exchange earnings.
In November 2000, at least 48 workers died and more than 150
were injured when they were trapped in a burning factory near Dhaka
because of a locked fire exit.
Six people were killed earlier this month at a textile factory
fire near Dhaka. Last April, more than 70 people died when an
illegally constructed garment factory collapsed.
(China Daily February 25, 2006)
