Devastating Clothing Factory Blaze in the South Asian nation Has Taken a Minimum of 16 Fatalities
No fewer than 16 individuals have died after a huge fire started at a garment factory in Bangladesh, with officials cautioning that the number of victims could rise.
16 bodies have been found but were burned beyond recognition, the fire service said.
Heartbroken relatives converged outside the four-storey factory in Dhaka's Mirpur area on that day in search of their loved ones still unaccounted for.
The inferno, which started at the factory around noon, was extinguished after three hours. But an nearby chemical warehouse continued to burn, officials said.
As late as 21:00 local time (15:00 GMT) that day, the fire at the chemical warehouse had not been completely doused, journalistic accounts indicated.
Fire service officials have not determined which of the two buildings caught fire first.
Per eyewitnesses, the chemical warehouse stored bleaching powder, synthetic polymers and chemical peroxide, all of which can intensify fires. Plastic also releases poisonous gases when burned.
Law enforcement and armed forces are still searching for the proprietors of the factory and the warehouse, fire service director Mohammad Tajul Islam Chowdhury told reporters.
An probe on whether the warehouse was running according to regulations is also in progress, he added.
Weeping family members waited outside the burned buildings, many of them clutching photographs of their missing relatives.
Included in the crowd is a man looking frantically for his daughter, his family member.
"When I heard about the fire, I hurried to the scene. But I still haven't found her... I just want my daughter back," he told news media.
The catastrophic occurrence has yet again underscored the security issues plaguing Bangladesh's clothing sector, which employs countless of workers and is a major source of export earnings for the South Asian economy.
