One dead, 42 hurt after fire in chemical warehouse
A garment factory employee died, 20 workers were injured and another 22 fell sick in a fire at the chemical warehouse of the factory in Gazipur's Sreepur upazila yesterday morning.
The dead, Masum Sikder, 23, was a wielding operator at Dhaka Garments and Washing Limited in Bhangnahati area.
Witnesses said there were several power outages at the warehouse after 9:30am. As the fire broke out around 10:00am, workers of the garment factory, housed in a five-storey building next to the warehouse, rushed to the main entrance of the factory, but found it locked.
Twenty workers sustained injuries there in a crowd surge before the factory authorities opened the gate.
Many workers then went to the nearby warehouse to put out the flames. At least 22 of them fell unconscious after inhaling toxic fumes, added witnesses.
On information, two fire engines rushed to the warehouse and doused the flames around 10:30am, said Mia Raj, senior station officer at Sreepur Fire Service Station.
KM Najmul Ahsan, duty doctor at Sreepur Upazila Health Complex, said 10 injured workers were admitted to the health complex. Later, six of them were released and the rest four referred to Sheikh Hasina National Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute in Dhaka suspecting that their respiratory system was damaged.
Besides, 32 RMG workers, including the 22 who fainted, were released from the health complex after being given primary treatment, the physician said.
The origin of the fire and the extent of losses could not be determined immediately.
Speaking to journalists outside the factory, 75-year-old Khodeza Begum of Dakshin Bhangnahati village said her two granddaughters, who joined work at the factory in the morning, went missing after the fire incident.
Md Sadeq, sub-inspector at Sreepur Police Station, said the victim's body was recovered from the chemical warehouse after the fire was doused. He might have died of suffocation in chemical fumes, the SI added.
Police later sent the body to Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Medical College and Hospital for an autopsy.
Factory sources said it has a total of about 1,500 workers. Around 500 of them were working at the factory when the fire broke out.
Mohammad Selim, general manager (admin) of the factory, denied the allegation of not allowing the workers to go out during the fire.
Sreepur Fire Service Station has launched an investigation into the incident. The factory and the warehouse were shut after the incident.