SITAKUNDA, Bangladesh — At least 49 people died, and hundreds were injured after a fire
sparked a huge chemical explosion at a shipping container depot in
Bangladesh,
officials said on Sunday.
اضافة اعلان
The toll was
expected to rise, with some of the more than 300 people injured in serious
condition, officials said, while volunteers reported that there were more
bodies inside the smoldering, wreckage-strewn facility.
The fire started
late on Saturday at the depot in Sitakunda, which stores around 4,000
containers, many of them filled with garments destined for Western retailers.
The facility is about 40 kilometers) from the major southern port of
Chittagong.
Following the
fire, containers holding chemicals exploded, engulfing firefighters, volunteers
and journalists in an inferno, hurtling people and debris through the air, and
turning the night sky a blazing orange.
Buildings located
kilometers away rattled with the force of the blast.
Elias Chowdhury,
regional chief doctor, told AFP that the number of dead was 49 but would
increase. Firefighters continued to douse pockets of fire with hoses on
Sunday. “The death toll will rise as the
rescue work has not been completed yet,” Chowdhury said. “These people — including
several journalists who were doing Facebook lives — are still not accounted
for.”
Reazul Karim,
operations director of the fire department, said that at least seven
firefighters died and that at least four others were missing. “Never in our
fire department history have we lost so many firefighters in a single
incident,” Bharat Chandra, a former senior firefighter, told AFP.
“There are still
some bodies inside the fire-affected places. I saw eight or 10 bodies,” one
volunteer told reporters.
Mujibur Rahman,
the director of B.M. Container Depot, the firm operating the facility with
around 600 workers, said that the cause of the initial fire was still unknown.
The container
depot held hydrogen peroxide; fire service chief Brig. Gen. Main Uddin told
reporters. “We still could not control the fire because of the existence of
this chemical,” he said.
Chowdhury, the
chief doctor in
Chittagong, said the injured had been rushed to different
hospitals as doctors were brought back from holiday to help. Requests for blood
donations for the injured flooded social media.
The army said it
had deployed 250 troops to prevent chemicals flowing into the Indian Ocean by
using sandbags.
Mominur Rahman, chief
administrator of Chittagong district, said that while the fire was largely
under control, there were “still several pockets” that were active. “Firefighters are trying to control these
pockets of fires. The fire has spread to at least seven acres of land inside
the depot,” he said.
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