Tragic Apparel Factory Inferno in Bangladesh Has Taken no Fewer than 16 Lives
No fewer than 16 people have perished after a huge fire broke out at a garment factory in Bangladesh, with emergency services cautioning that the death toll could rise.
A total of sixteen bodies have been found but were charred impossible to identify, the fire service stated.
Grief-stricken relatives converged outside the four-level factory in the Mirpur district of Dhaka on Tuesday in looking for their loved ones still unaccounted for.
The blaze, which broke out at the factory around lunchtime, was extinguished after several hours. But an neighboring chemical warehouse continued to burn, emergency services said.
Up until 21:00 local time (15:00 GMT) that day, the fire at the chemical warehouse had not been fully extinguished, media reports reported.
Fire service officials have not established which of the two buildings caught fire first.
Per bystanders, the chemical warehouse housed chemical bleaching agents, synthetic polymers and industrial peroxide, all of which can intensify fires. Polymer products also produces hazardous smoke when burned.
Law enforcement and armed forces are still attempting to find the owners of the factory and the warehouse, fire service director Mohammad Tajul Islam Chowdhury briefed reporters.
An probe on whether the warehouse was functioning with proper authorization is also currently underway, he mentioned.
Tearful family members waited outside the charred buildings, many of them grasping photographs of their missing relatives.
Among them is a man seeking urgently for his daughter, his loved one.
"When I heard about the fire, I hurried to the scene. But I still have been unable to find her... I just want my child back," he expressed to journalists.
The devastating event has once again emphasized the safety concerns plaguing Bangladesh's apparel manufacturing, which provides jobs for millions of workers and is a significant source of foreign revenue for the South Asian economy.
