AN INVESTIGATION HAS BEGUN ON THE FATAL HIGH-RISE fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that occurred on Friday. The fire took place in a 21-story shopping center/office building and burned out the top six floors of the building. (Reported on Firegeezer HERE and HERE.)
Reuters
Seven people were killed, all of them building employees. Four of them were members of the building’s fire brigade who, along with the others were burned after being trapped in a 17th-floor room where they died except for one man who attempted to climb down a rope but fell.
Xinhua reports on their heroic actions:
“I managed to escape but some of my colleagues were burnt to death. I heard one of my fellow’s screaming but I could do nothing,” an injured fire fighter said Saturday outside the Bangladesh’s biggest shopping mall where a big fire broke out on Friday.
The injured anonymous fire fighter told Xinhua early Saturday morning that he with other colleagues were helping to displace people caught up just at the 17th floor of the building on Friday afternoon along side working to stem outbreak of the flame. He is from the fire brigade of the Bashundhara Group, the owner of the posh shopping mall.
”As the fire spread, we started to retreat. But suddenly I found my colleague, who was helping people move out the building, was trapped in a room,” he said, adding that he could do nothing at the moment as roof debris were falling down and flames were blocking the way.
One of his colleagues Bake Bella, who was trapped on 18th floor, was seen Friday afternoon climbing down by a rope outside the building. Witnesses said he was burnt seriously and suffered from fractures. He died later though he was rushed to hospital after landing. However, Billah earlier successfully helped five others transfer to a safe place by using a rope.
The government is just now decided to make an emergency purchase of modern firefighting equipment for the capital city’s fire department and begin a training program for the FF’s.
The shopping center on the lower floors is expected to reopen for business on Monday morning.
The Daily Star has MORE.
Meanwhile, the architect who designed the building that was opened in 2004 says that he is baffled by the very high rate of fire spread in the building.
“It has all the modern, automated systems to extinguish fire and prevent all other accidents,” architect Md Foyez Ullah told bdnews24.com. There is a fire-detection system and trained staff on each level of the complex. They are supposed to douse flames shortly after the fire is detected, he said. (Apparently fire sprinklers are unknown to Bangladeshi architects….ED.)
You can read the rest of that report HERE.
