A huge fire that broke out at a multi-storey market-cum-residential building at North Badda in the city early Wednesday, gutted a number of shops and was finally put off after 14 hours of frantic efforts.
No causality was immediately reported in the fire. The fire fighters, however, could not ascertain the reason of the fire.
Commuters using Rampura and North Badda roads faced severe traffic congestion throughout the day as fire fighters launched intensive operation, parking their fire trucks on the road.
Police also encountered immense hurdles to control crowds who appeared there to have a look.
The fire originated from a shop at the first floor of the 14-storey storey ‘BTI Premier Plaza’ around 2:30am, Wednesday.
The first floor had housed mostly furniture and clothing outlets. The fire spread quickly to other floors– up to third floor– but did not reach the residential apartments, fire department officials said.
Dousing the blaze took long hours as the high-rise lacked adequate firefighting equipment.
Twenty four fire fighting units battled for hours to put out the inferno starting from 3:00am and were able to contain it around 4:50pm, said an official at the fire service and civil defence control room.
Residents said several hundred of them panicked after hearing the news of fire. They quickly started to leave the building. Many went to the rooftop to escape, they said.
They said that the plaza had 120 residential flats.
Fire fighters, however, rescued them, said Md Liakat Ali Khan, a resident of that affected building.
The fire service’s Dhaka division deputy director, Md Mozammel Hoque, said they were initially frustrated as they could not approach the building with their trucks due to narrow lane and lower clearance.
He said that they then took position on the adjacent buildings and started taming the fire.
‘Such a high-rise should have 20 feet space around it but it has only five or six feet,’ he said.
He said the building also lacked water and they had to bring it from the neighbouring buildings as well as from the drains.
‘On the top of it, the hydrants and hydraulic pressure system of the building was inactive,’ Mozammel said.
Source: New Age
