Deadly Apparel Factory Blaze in Bangladesh Takes at Least 16 Victims
A minimum of 16 persons have perished after a huge fire broke out at a garment factory in Bangladesh, with emergency services cautioning that the number of victims could increase.
16 bodies have been retrieved but were burned impossible to identify, the fire department said.
Grief-stricken relatives assembled outside the four-level factory in Dhaka's Mirpur area on Tuesday in looking for their family members still not found.
The fire, which erupted at the factory around midday, was extinguished after several hours. But an adjacent chemical warehouse continued to burn, emergency services reported.
Up until 21:00 local time (15:00 GMT) yesterday, the fire at the chemical warehouse had not been entirely put out, journalistic accounts indicated.
Emergency responders have not ascertained which of the two buildings caught fire first.
Based on witnesses, the chemical warehouse stored industrial bleaches, plastic and hydrogen peroxide, all of which can intensify fires. Synthetic materials also releases hazardous smoke when combusted.
Police and military officers are still attempting to find the operators of the factory and the warehouse, emergency services head the department director briefed reporters.
An inquiry on whether the warehouse was running according to regulations is also ongoing, he noted.
Weeping family members waited outside the charred buildings, many of them clutching photographs of their unaccounted for relatives.
Among them is a man looking frantically for his daughter, his loved one.
"When I heard about the fire, I came running. But I still cannot locate her... I just want my child back," he expressed to news media.
The catastrophic occurrence has yet again emphasized the safety concerns plaguing Bangladesh's apparel manufacturing, which provides jobs for numerous of workers and is a major contributor to export earnings for the nation.
