Firefighters and army personnel are working to douse a major fire that has raged through a popular clothing market with 3,000 shops in Bangladesh’s capital, officials said.
The fire started at Bangabazar Market in Dhaka at 6:10am (12:10 GMT) on Tuesday but no casualties were reported immediately, local fire services official Rafi Al Faruk told newsmen.
He said firefighters from 47 units were working to douse the massive blaze, which blanketed the city’s oldest neighbourhoods in black smoke.
“We have no immediate reports of any casualties,” he said.
Shop owners and fire officials told reporters the Bangabazar market and three adjacent commercial precincts had been almost completely gutted.
Anwarul Islam, another fire service official, said they had no idea how the fire originated.
A military spokesman said in a statement that an air force helicopter had joined the firefighting effort.
The market is a popular destination for cut-price Western fashion brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, selling clothes that were produced in the city’s garment factories but failed to meet export standards.
Distraught shop owners told reporters the blaze had left them destitute weeks before Eid, the Muslim festival marking the end of Ramadan and the country’s biggest religious celebration.
“I borrowed 1.5 million taka ($14,100) to buy Eid clothing,” one business owner said. “I have lost everything.”
Shop owner Akter Hossain and two of his staff were seen trying to bring out stocks of clothing from their burning shop while onlookers stopped them from going near the fire.
“I just invested around a million taka ($9,500) to stock new clothes ahead of Eid. All of those have turned into ashes. How will I ever recover from the loss?” a wailing Hossain told reporters.
D M Habib, an official at Bangabazar Shop Owners Association, told reporters that at least 3,000 shops, mostly made of tin and wood, were completely gutted in the fire.
“The market had readymade garment products worth hundreds of millions. Most of the shops had extra stocks as Eid is little more than two weeks away,” Habib said.
Bangabazar, managed by the Dhaka South City Corporation, has a long history of fire hazards. According to official data, there were at least six small to medium fire incidents in the market in the past decade.
“The fire this time however is massive,” said Habib. “It reminds me of a fire in 1995 in which the whole market was burnt down.”
Fires often take place in commercial places in Bangladesh because of lax monitoring and the lack of fire safety arrangements.
But conditions in the country’s huge garment industry, which experienced major disasters including devastating fires in the past, have improved significantly over the last decade.
