Trapped in smoke
Ha-Meem Group garment workers could not reach fire-fighting equipment to douse the blaze, as chocking smoke clouded their vision.
A number of injured workers said this to reporters at different city hospitals and clinics where they were under treatment.
Mokbul, a 32-year-old worker from Bogra, said they tried to come out of the building but could not see the stairs due to the coiling smoke.
"There was smoke on the ninth floor where the fire originated, and the tenth floor where the canteen is located," Mokbul, who made a dramatic escape, told this correspondent.
Rasel, another worker, said some 200 people were in the canteen just before the fire broke out. He said four of the five stairways of the building were opened but workers could not use them, as so many of them were rushing to it at a time.
"We could not use the stairs due to the heavy smoke. Many jumped out of the floor without thinking about the consequence," said Rasel, who himself jumped from the tenth floor.
He said he was luck to sustain only slight injuries. But his co-worker Rezaul, died after he jumped from the same floor, he added.
Mokbul along with some other workers used a roll of denim cloth as a rope and climbed down the building breaking open a window.
The factory has a committee that holds monthly meeting with the workers on fire drill, Rasel said, adding, they were also trained to use the fire fighting equipment.
"But we could not see the equipment due to the plumes," said Rasel, who was being treated at Doctors General Hospital and Diagnostic Centre at Ashulia in Savar.
Some 11 workers were rushed to the hospital with minor injuries, said M Abdul Motaleb, a physician at the hospital.
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