Fire in Old Dhaka again, kills 6

Six staffers of a restaurant were yesterday burnt to death after a fire broke out at a building that houses an eatery and plastic goods and polythene warehouses in Old Dhaka's Chawkbazar.

A leaky gas connection at the restaurant -- Barishal Hotel -- located on the ground floor of the four-storey building on Debidas Ghat Lane in the Kamal Bagh area most likely started the fire, according to fire service officials and residents in the area, who heard a long bang at around 11:45 am.

From there, the fire spread to a shoe factory next door, said Khorshed Alam, who lives in the area. From the shoe factory, the fire travelled to the first floor of the next building, where a packaging factory is located.

Ten firefighting units doused the flames after a two-hour effort.

"There was no fire safety measurement," Bazlur Rashid, deputy assistant director of Fire Service and Civil Defence, told The Daily Star.

Firefighters recovered the six charred bodies from the first floor of the building, where they were sleeping after the end of their night shift. Five of the bodies are charred beyond recognition.

According to relatives, six staff of the restaurant were missing after the fire incident. They are: Billal Sarder, 35, of Barishal; Osman Sardar, 25, of Shariatpur; Md Sharif, 15, of Cumilla; Swapan Sarkar, 19, of Habiganj; Rubel Mahmud, 30, of Madaripur; and Abdul Motaleb, 16, of Mostafa Maji.

Among them, relatives identified Billal, who has been working as a waiter at the restaurant for three months. Billal was unreachable after the fire caught the building around 11:45 am, said his brother Ayub Ali.

Soon after the fire broke out, Swapan had called his cousin Badshah Sarker for help at 11:46 am, said Badshah, who has a restaurant nearby.

The bodies were sent to Sir Salimullah Medical College morgue for autopsy.

This is the latest in a long line of devastating fire incidents in this congested part of the capital.

Rows of plastic factories and warehouses of plastic goods line the narrow alleys of Chawkbazar's Kamal Bagh area.

On 20 February 2019, a devastating fire that broke out at Chawkbazar's Churihatta intersection claimed the lives of 70 people.

"There is no fire safety system in the plastic warehouses and adjacent buildings -- these establishments are very dangerous," Zillur Rahman, director of operations of Fire Service and Civil Defence, told reporters at the scene of the incident.

Fire service will form an investigation committee over the incident, he added.

The bodies will be handed over to their families after DNA tests, said Zafar Hossain, deputy commissioner of Lalbagh.