The authorities in Bangladesh on Monday accused the operator of a container warehouse of not informing the fire brigade about the presence of chemicals. These intervened at the site on Saturday night to put out a fire that sparked a huge explosion that killed at least 49 people, including nine firefighters.
The fire broke out around 21:30 (15:30 GMT) on Saturday at a private warehouse containing around 4,000 containers in Sitakunda, some 40 kilometers from the major port of Chittagong in the south-east of the country. Hundreds of firefighters were immediately dispatched to the site to put out the blaze, which spread to several containers filled with chemicals and sparked a huge explosion an hour later, the fire department said.
At least 49 people died and more than 300 were injured. A dozen of them, who were in critical condition, were flown to the capital, Dhaka, for treatment.
collecting DNA
Doctors on leave have been recalled from several hospitals to help treat the hundreds of injured, according to Elias Chowdhury, Chittagong’s chief medical officer.
Relatives of the missing and dead waited at the hospital to provide DNA samples that would be used to identify the victims. Nine firefighters died and two others are still missing, according to authorities.
“Never in the history of the fire service have so many firefighters died,” Purnachandra Mutsuddi, deputy chief of the Chittagong Fire Station who was in charge of extinguishing the fire on Saturday, told AFP. “No event is more painful than the loss of brothers”. The 10.5-acre site “did not have a fire safety plan,” he added.
“A safety plan provides for how the storage facility will fight and control a (possible) fire. But there was nothing,” Mr Mutsuddi continued, regretting that the depot authorities had not informed them “of the presence of the chemicals,” including hydrogen peroxide. “If they had, the number of victims would have been much smaller.” .
“Never in the history of the fire service have so many firefighters died,” Purnachandra Mutsuddi, deputy chief of Chittagong Fire Station who was in charge of fire fighting on Saturday, told AFP. “No event is more painful than the loss of brothers.” The 10.5-acre site “did not have a fire safety plan,” he added.
“A safety plan envisages how the repository will fight and control a (possible) fire. But there was nothing,” Mutsuddi continued, regretting that the repository authorities “did not know about the presence of the chemicals,” including hydrogen peroxide , would have informed. “If they had done it, the death toll would have been much smaller.”
water and hydrogen peroxide
Because “there are rules for storing hydrogen peroxide,” he clarified, “if we had known that, we would never have used water. We would never have driven our vehicle into the depot.” Unaware that hydrogen peroxide was on the site, his teams hastily fought the flames with water, which no doubt set off a deadly chemical reaction, as he explained: “One container flew over 150 meters”.
“The explosion threw fireballs into the sky. Fireballs falling like rain. We were so scared that we fled immediately,” said 60-year-old Mohammad Ali, who runs a nearby grocery store. The search for more victims was hampered on Monday by the fire, which has still not been fully extinguished. Over dozens of containers rose pillars of smoke.
“About 30 to 40 containers are still burning,” said Harunur Rashid, an inspector at the fire department. “The fire is under control,” he said, “but the chemicals are the main problem.”
BM Container Depot is a joint venture founded in 2012 by Bangladeshi and Dutch businessmen and employs around 600 people. According to its website, the chairman is Bert Pronk, a Dutchman whom AFP was initially unable to reach.
Few European businessmen operate in the country. According to the local press, BM Container Depot executives included a senior official from the ruling Awami League in Chittagong, who is also the editor-in-chief of a local Bengali daily newspaper. “Our investigation is ongoing. We will investigate everything,” said local police chief Abul Kalam Azad.
“Huge loss for the textile industry”
About 90 percent of Bangladesh’s annual trade volume of around 100 billion US dollars (93.4 billion euros) is processed via Chittagong. Mominur Rahman, the district’s top administrator, explained that the camp also contained millions of dollars worth of clothing to be exported to western countries.
According to Rakibul Alam Chowdhury of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the fire destroyed around US$110 million worth of garments, “a huge loss for the industry”.
In February 2019, at least 70 people were killed and 55 others injured when a massive fire destroyed homes in Dhaka where chemicals had been illegally stored. (AFP)
This translated post previously appeared on FashionUnited.fr.