DHAKA: Fire crews rushed to the scene of a huge blaze that broke out in a 19-storey commercial building in Dhaka on Thursday, a Bangladesh emergency official told AFP.
“Nineteen fire-fighting units are working at the scene. Bangladesh navy and air force have also joined to fight the fire,“ said duty officer Mohammad Russel from Dhaka’s central fire service control room.
It was not immediately clear if people were trapped inside the office block in Banani, an upmarket commercial district in the Bangladeshi capital.
Images on social media showed intense flames and thick black smoke pouring out of the building, with panicked bystanders rushing in the crowded street below.
A massive blaze in Dhaka’s old quarter last month killed at least 70 people and injured 50 others.
Fire service officials said a warehouse of deodorant and granular plastic in one of the five buildings that caught fire fuelled that inferno, which took more than 12 hours to control.
The disaster recalled a June 2010 fire in the nearby neighbourhood of Nimtoli in which 123 people were killed. — AFP
