Couple killed in fire from gas

Like any other day, garment worker Muslima was making breakfast in her kitchen around 4:00am yesterday. She had to get up early to cook due to gas crisis.

The moment the 20-year-old lit a match, there was a blast and a fire soon engulfed the room on the ground floor of a three-storey building in the capital's Uttarkhan.

Hearing her screams, her husband Azizul, 27, along with others, who lived nearby, rushed to her rescue but they too got trapped in the fire.

Severely burnt Muslima Aktar and Azizul Haque, a worker at a poultry feed factory, died after they were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH).

Six others on the floor were also critically injured. They were being treated at the burn unit of the hospital.

“All the injured suffered burns to their respiratory tracts,” Partha Shankar Paul, a resident surgeon at the burn unit, told The Daily Star.

The injured were rickshaw puller Dablu Mondal, 33, his wife Anju Ara Begum, 25, their son Abdullah Sourav, 6, Afroza Aktar Purnima, 35, her son Mohammad Sagar, 12, and her mother Sufia Begum, 50.

The three families had been living in three adjacent rooms in Beparipara area for the last two months. All the victims, hailing from Pabna's Bhangura, were relatives. Muslima and Azizul got married a year ago.

Muslima, Anju, Sufia -- all workers of a nearby garment factory -- used to go to work together almost every morning.

Quoting Anju, one of her neighbours told The Daily Star that the victim woke up to Muslima's screams. 

“As soon as my husband [Dablu] opened the door and tried to reach Muslima, the raging fire entered our room. We quickly went inside the washroom and turned on the shower,” Farjana Aktar, a student, quoted Anju as saying.

“The temperature became extremely high. Even the water turned unbearably hot,” Farjana said, adding, on information, fire fighters rescued them later.

According to the DMCH sources, Dablu had 65 percent of his body burnt while Abdullah 12 percent, and Anju six percent.

Sufia suffered 99 percent burn injury, Purnima 80 percent, and Sagar 66 percent, added the sources.

Azizul, who had 99 percent of his body burnt, died around 10:30am while Muslima, with 98 percent burn injuries, died around 5:10pm at the DMCH.

The victims had been facing an acute gas crisis and on most occasions, their building had no gas supply at night. They had to wake up early to cook.

Fire officials suspect that the blast occurred and the fire broke out due to gas leaked from the stove pipeline.

Ataur Rahman, duty officer of Fire Service and Civil Defence, said three fire fighting units doused the flame and took the injured to the DMCH.

He said they found the stove switch off.

Shafiqul Islam, senior station officer at Uttara fire station, all the household items on the floor were burnt in the fire.

Explosions from gas leaks occurred on several occasions in the past, claiming lives.

According to Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence, 4,236 fire incidents happened last year involved fire from stoves, which accounts for 23.40 percent of the total fire incidents across the country that year.

On March 25, four students of Khulna University of Engineering and Technology, who were doing their internships in Mymensingh, succumbed to injuries they had received when a newly connected gas line exploded in a six-storey building in the district's Bhaluka upazila.

On August 10, 10 people, including six of a family, were injured in an explosion in a water tank. Five of the family died later.