Factories evacuated

Workers and machineries were evacuated from a four-storey building on Sunday afternoon after it tilted aside in the capital's Benarashi Palli at Mirpur.

Located at Block-C of Section-11, the building tilted towards the western side developing cracks at different places of the walls of two adjacent one-storey buildings.

Two shoe factories were housed on the ground and first floor while two garments units on the second and third floor of the building constructed on a small piece of land.

"Soon after we could know about it, we sealed it off by evacuating all the workers and machineries from it considering their safety," said Imtiaz Ahmed, deputy commissioner (Mirpur division).

He said the owner of the building Bhutto Miah has gone into hiding.

Arshad Ali, a neighbour, said they noticed cracks on the walls of the adjacent buildings three days ago.

"But we could notice the building is tilted after the storm on Saturday night," he said.

Abdul Motaleb, a building inspector of the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakhya (Rajuk), who went to visit the building, said, "The building has been built illegally without informing the Rajuk. It has no holding number."

Police and locals said the building has been built by grabbing the land of a road and it has been built without foundation and no engineer was involved for the construction.

Connections of electricity and gas were also illegal, they said.