The Fire Service and Civil Defence has found many “safety lapses” in the upscale building that caught fire in Dhaka’s Gulshan on Sunday, killing at least two people and injuring several others.
Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Tajul Islam Chowdhury, a fire service director who is heading a five-member investigation committee, inspected the building on Monday.
The building did not have a proper fire safety system, he said.
Six duplex apartments on every floor of the 12-storey building, except the ground floor, house several families. Many people got stuck at their apartments after the blaze engulfed the building, reports bdnews24.com.
It took the firefighters four hours to douse the fire. Two victims died and another was critically injured after jumping off to save themselves from the scorching flames.
The building owners acquired a no-objection certificate from the fire service but did not follow the rules requiring a fire safety system based on inspections, Tajul said.
The residents of the building had no training in extinguishing fire or experience in fire drills, he said and added that these factors led to many jumping off from such heights.
“We repeatedly told them not to jump and that we were coming. But they did not get it in the heat of the moment and were completely bewildered. You then saw how our people risked their lives to rescue the people trapped inside.”
Tajul did not give further details of how the building lacked safety measures on “many counts”.
Asked whether the building had emergency exits or fire extinguishers, he said: “We don’t really want to speak about these matters right now. We’ll get more information and things might look different then.”
Tajul said each flat in the building was decorated with a lot of flammable materials.
On how the fire broke out, he said: “The building’s gas and power connections are located in the same place. Now it’s difficult to say where and how the fire started without proper investigation.”
