Minister calls deadly Dhaka blaze ‘murder’ after officials say building lacked proper fire exits and fire equipment.
The death toll from a horrific blaze that ripped through a Dhaka high-rise building has climbed to 25, Bangladeshi police said, as government officials vowed tough action to improve lax safety standards.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Mostaq Ahmed, deputy commissioner of the Gulshan division of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said the victims had been identified and “24 have been handed over to their families”.
The blaze on Thursday left hundreds of people trapped inside the 22-storey FT tower screaming for help as horrified onlookers massed outside.
Some of those stuck inside made it to safety by sliding down cables on the side of the building, but others took their chances and jumped in a bid to escape the smoke and heat. Six people leaped to their deaths.
More than 70 people were taken to hospital for treatment in the wake of the fire.
On Friday, firefighters completed the process of combing through the gutted and blackened floors of the building. Ahmed, of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said there was no immediate indication if others are missing.
“Still we are checking, if someone comes to us we will verify,” he said.
Ataur Rahman, a restaurant worker who rushed to the scene when the fire broke out, said the image of people jumping from the building would haunt him forever.
“I could hear the screams of people trapped inside the building,” he told Al Jazeera. “Soon after the fire spread on the seventh, eighth and ninth floors, people started breaking window panes to get out.
“Then I witnessed the most horrible scene – people falling from the top floors while trying to climb down the wires in the building. I saw two people falling down.”
Abdulla Al Faruq Tomal, a 32-year-old who worked on the 11th floor of the FR Tower, was among the 25 victims.
His wife, Sanjidha Ovi, said Tomal called her soon after the fire broke out.
“He telephoned me and said he had found a safe zone inside the building. The last time he called, he said he was on the 15th floor and that the smoke from the fire had reached that floor. I told him to go to the roof, but he said there was ‘no scope’ to do so,” Ovi told Al Jazeera.
“We have two children. I don’t know what will happen to them,” she said, her voice choking.
Shammi Akhter said her 27-year-old brother Fazle Rabbi had died of smoke inhalation.
“I received my brother’s dead body on Friday at the morgue,” Akhter told Al Jazeera. “He was supposed to get married in this year.”
