Five people were killed as a fire ravaged an unauthorised shoe sole manufacturing factory, stashed with flammable polymer and glue, in Old Dhaka's Swarighat area early yesterday.

All the victims are believed to be staffers of the factory. The bodies, charred beyond recognition, were kept at the morgue of Sir Salimullah Medical College and would be handed to families after DNA tests.

Police, fire service and local sources said the fire broke out around 1:15am. At that time, seven factory staffers were in their sleep on the first floor of the factory named Rumana Rubber Industry.

Some 50 people work at the factory in two shifts. The building also houses a warehouse. All machines were kept on the 6500sqft ground floor.

"I woke up hearing screams for help. I saw flames engulfing both the ground and first floors," Abdur Razzak, a labourer working at an adjacent rubber factory, told The Daily Star. The man lives nearby.

Dinomoni Sharma, deputy director (Dhaka) of Fire Service and Civil Defence, said they rushed to the spot immediately after being informed, but the fire had already spread inside the two floors.

"The fire spread fast as there was a huge stash of combustible polymer and glue. The factory does not have any authorisation to run. Its structure is faulty. Besides, it did not have any fire safety gear," he told this daily.

Eight fire engines brought the blaze under control around 3:00am. The bodies were recovered around an hour later.

Dinomoni said they found the five bodies lying one after another. "They died probably after inhaling smoke. Later, their bodies got burnt beyond recognition."

He said they were working to find out how the fire originated. "The authorities will form a committee on Sunday [tomorrow] to look into it."

Police suspect the victims are the factory's manager Kamrul Islam, 22, machine operators Aminul Mia, 36, Mirza Monir Hossain, 35, Abdur Rahman, 34, and Shamim Mia, 35. They have been missing since the incident and are feared dead.

Deputy Commissioner Jashim Uddin Mollah of police (Lalbagh Division) said they would hand over the bodies to the families following identification through DNA tests.

At the morgue of Sir Salimullah Medical College, family members of the five missing kept crying and wailing throughout the day.

"Abba called over the phone hours before the fire and told us that he would visit us tomorrow [today]. He had not come home in two months," missing Monir Hossain's 12-year-old son Nahid Hossain sobbed.

Nahid, along with his mother and other relatives, rushed to Dhaka yesterday morning from their village home in Chandpur's Kachua.

Monir, a father of two sons and a daughter, has been working at the factory for the last 17 years. He earned around 20,000 monthly.

Another missing man, Aminul Mia, is from Manikganj Sadar upazila. He had returned to work on Thursday after a one-month leave, said his elder sister Bilkis Begum.

She claimed that she identified his brother's body through his teeth. But the authorities would hand over the body only after the DNA tests.

Sub-inspector of Chawkbazar Police Station Nur Uddin said he heard from witnesses that two of the seven workers sleeping on the first floor managed to come out safely.

"Police would interrogate the factory owner Haji Rafiq," he added.