Fire engulfs top floor of tower block, Basundhara City Mall, Panthapath, Dhaka
Helicopter rescued one person taking shelter on roof
Ever curious onlookers soon jampacked road outlets
Night view - fire contained
Fire broke out in the largest shopping mall of the city - Basundhara City Mall, Panthapath, Dhaka today at 02:30 pm. It is not known how the fire started at the top floor (18 floor) of the tower block that began to spread to floors below. Fire Brigade vehicles all over Dhaka arrived after 2 hours and fought for 7 hours to contain fire from spreading below 14th floor. They did not have mechanical means to combat fire above 10 storey from outside. It is learnt that the built-in fire fighting system of this highrise building was intelligently designed with control room, automatic fire alarm, modern fighting measures and independent evacuation system during fire, but Firemen reportedly found the water hydrants dry and locked. May be regular fire fighting drill by the concerned staff in the building could have averted the disaster. Two years ago similar incident happened in Karwanbazar BSEC building and fire brigade team had a tiring time due to lack of modern equipments.
Since this highrise structure was subjected to very high temperature for long due to fire it is now necessary to re-evaluate its condition and strength before use.
It is learnt, one member of the Basuhdhara fire team died due to black smoke suffocation and about 100 injured. Gathering of large number of curious onlookers blocking the road outlets was a great hindrance to the fire fighters and law enforcing forces.
2 comments:
It is unbelievable that it took "2 hours" for the Firemen to reach the mall!
Also I don't think fire drills are ever practiced in Bangladesh, which is extremely sad.
The failure to comply with fire drill provision is punishable in most countries.
Failure to implement basic elements can lead to such results. How can you maintain such large buildings without the basics?
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