As many as 80,000 telephone connections of the state-owned telecom service provider BTCL were snapped after a fire broke out at its Sher-e-Bangla Nagar office in the capital around 5:00am yesterday.
However, most of the connections were restored by 11:45am after fire fighters doused the blaze, said Mir Md Morshed, director of BTCL's public relations wing.
Telephone services at the Prime Minister's Office, and Mohammadpur, Tejgaon, Agargaon, Karwan Bazar, Farmgate, Shewrapara and Kazipara areas and a large portion of Dhanmondi were disrupted following the incident, he said.
Around 3,000 lines that were badly damaged may be fixed by tomorrow and the others in phases, said the BTCL official.
Cables of the main distribution room were damaged in the fire but the switches were unharmed.
The fire might have originated from an electric short-circuit on the ground floor of the five-storey building, said Nazma Akter, an officer at the fire service headquarters at Mohammadpur.
On information, eight fire fighting units rushed to the spot and extinguished the blaze after frantic efforts for two and a half hours.
Meanwhile, a five-member committee has been formed to probe the fire incident. The committee has been asked to submit a report in 72 hours, according to a BTCL statement.