Sultana Sabiha
The deadly fire broke out in Chawkbazar of Old Dhaka and took about 70 lives. After a gas cylinder fell from a pickup van containing cylinders filled with gas got leaked and caused the massive fire, the sources said. The Blaze spread from a chemical warehouse to the nearby buildings. This is one of the worst fire incidents that took place in Bangladesh.
The fire was broken out at about 10.30 AM from the road to a warehouse that was situated on the ground floor of a building, Hazi Wahed Mansion. It is situated behind a Mosque Shahi Mosque at Churihatta, Chawkbazar area of the old Dhaka. The deadly flame soon spread out and combusted three of nearby buildings and a community center. A while after, it swallowed up the other two buildings and Rajomni Restaurant, near to the building it started. It was so quick that people cannot reach the safe zone timely. As a result of that, the death toll raised to nearly 70 with numerous injured people.
The active and self-sacrificing firefighters worked at the spot all night long and fought to douse the flames. With their tireless and assiduous effort, lots of injured people got treatment and were safe. But a huge loss had already made by the demolishing fire. 70 lives on the hoof lost the lights of their lives. They were burnt alive. The rescue team and the observers couldn’t find out the true provenance of the conflagration initially, but they accused the presence of combustible materials to make it the worst.
All the injured people and dead bodies had been taken to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Injured people got treatment where the bodies were being identified and returned to their families. It was so pathetic that the area near DMC got heavier with the lamentation of the relatives and the smell of human ash. DMC started handing over the bodies to the relatives at 2.15 PM on 21st February, the day when the nation was observing the Language Movement Day by remembering language martyrs. Prof Shohel Mahmood, head of Forensics Medicine said, “We’ve handed over the bodies that we were able to identify. Some of the bags contained only parts. Considering that, the total number of dead maybe 67”. The government also came alongside the people who lost their family members. Senior Assistant Commissioner Imrul Hassan said that the amilies will receive Tk 20,000 each from district authorities to lay the victims to rest. Also, the government assured the injured people to bear all their medical expenses. The Ministry of Labour announced that they would provide Tk 100,000 to the families of workers killed in the incident and Tk 50,000 for the workers injured in it for their treatment.
This smashing incident just brings back the grief of the conflagration on Nimtoli in old Dhaka on the night of June 3, 2010. That time it was so annihilating that it despatched about 117 people and partly burnt down more than 150 people. Same as Chawkbazar’s incident, the source of Nimtoli conflagration was marked upon a chemical warehouse situated on the ground floor of a five-storied building. So, the question has arisen that how many lives Old Dhaka will take for the illegal and chaotic warehouse and chemical factories. More than half of the residential buildings of this area have a chemical factory or a plastic factory or a warehouse on the ground floor. Those factories and warehouses must contain lots of venomous and combustible materials. So, the risk of such devastating fortuitousness cannot be neglected.
The architect Nizamuddin Ahmed said, “This isn’t about poverty, it’s about greed. The people storing these chemicals in residential buildings are rich — they have cars, nice homes, and children studying abroad.” It should also be considered that it is not the government/system that is responsible for this kind of agonizing incidents only; it is also us, the normal people also show some indifferences and incognizance at some point in our courses of life changes everything, cause harm and scathe ourselves.
Now, the nation hopes that the government will take proper steps to avoid such accidents and relocate those hazardous warehouses and factories from all the residential area. People, regardless of age, religion, and profession just pray to the Almighty for the alleviation and tranquility of the souls of these burnt bodies.
Picture Courtesy: Suman Biswas