The fire service officials today found hundreds of containers and packets of flammable chemicals kept illegally at the basement of Haji Wahed Mansion, the building from where the fire reportedly broke out in Dhaka’s Chawkbazar on Wednesday night.
A team of Fire Service and Civil Defense found a warehouse of the chemicals after breaking the basement’s gate this morning as part of investigation into the incident, Ratan Kumar Debnath, station officer of Lalbagh Fire Service Station, told The Daily Star this afternoon.
“Hundreds of containers and packets of flammable chemicals had been stored at the basement, which was unknown to us while extinguishing the blaze on the fatal day,” he said.
“If the fire reached the basement and it contacted with the chemicals, it would have engulfed more buildings and the extent of losses from the fire would have gone up,” said Ratan Kumar.
Some local traders tried to prevent the fire service officials from busting the warehouse saying that those containers only cans of colour and not of flammable chemicals, the official also said.
Citing that no one can store flammable substance in any residential building, the fire service official said the packets and containers of the chemicals were stored in the basement illegally.
The devastating blaze in Chawkbazar claimed 67 lives, making it the second deadliest chemical-fuelled fire in the country after the 2010 Nimtoli incident.
Authorities have already handed over bodies of 45 victims of the devastating fire to their families, district administration has said.
WHAT HAPPENED AT CHAWKBAZAR?
A devastating fire broke out at Old Dhaka’s Chawkbazar area around 10:40pm on February 20. The incident left 67 people dead at the spot.
Autopsies found all the victims were burned alive.
The victims are mostly pedestrians, people travelling on rickshaws and cars, residents of the buildings as well as owners and staffers of the shops and warehouses at the buildings.
Source: The Daily Star
