Traders in Nilkhet, the largest book market in Dhaka, have been struggling with the impact of the pandemic. And just when hope seemed on the horizon, a devastating blaze has ruined their hard work.
“The fire has literally thrown us, the small traders who only had about Tk 500,000-600,000 in the bank, into the streets,” said shopkeeper Kamrul Islam, reports bdnews24.com.
On Tuesday, a fire that originated in a restaurant in Nilkhet spread quickly to the bookshops around it.
The fire was doused around an hour after it sparked, but had already gutted 30 to 40 shops in the closely-packed area by then, said Fire Service Director (Operations) Lt Gen Zillur Rahman.
The Nilkhet markets house around 450 bookstores, said Kamrul. At least 25 of them were totally destroyed, while 10 shops suffered damage.
The two-year closure of schools and colleges due to the pandemic had a sharp impact on the book trade, with a steep slump in sales. Traders were hoping to return to their usual business as educational institutions reopened on Feb 22 after another month-long break because of the coronavirus.
“For the last two years, we have only sold a tenth of the books we used to. We were just scraping by. And just as we started to dream of better days, the fire has destroyed the dream,” Kamrul said.
The owner of ‘Maa Book Corner’ said he has only a little money left to run his business and had to bear a loss of Tk 100,000 over the last two years.
“Now I lost the rest of my money to the fire.”
The blaze mainly affected shops in the Shahjalal, Islamia, Babupura and City Corporation markets.