Bangladesh skyscraper inferno toll rises to 25

The death toll from a deadly fire that ripped through a skyscraper in the Bangladeshi capital jumped to 25, officials said Friday, as firefighters nearly completed their search inside the charred shell of the building. A massive fire engulfed the 22-storey FR Tower in Dhaka's posh Banani area on Thursday, in the second major blaze to hit the country's capital since last month.

The incident, in the building that houses several garment shops and internet service providers, left several people trapped inside as the blaze spread to two adjacent buildings. "The death toll is 25 and 73 others have been injured," Mayor of North Dhaka Atiqul Islam said as fire service rescuers nearly completed their search for bodies inside the 22-storey building.

Fire service officials earlier said most of the casualties took place inside the high-rise building while their bodies were found during the search operation. Twenty-four of the bodies were handed over to the relatives while the body of the 25th victim, believed to be a government official, was kept at a government hospital for DNA test, a police spokesman said.

Fire Service Deputy Director Dilip Kumar Ghosh said that several people had panicked and leapt from the building, which led to the increased casualties. The building had narrow staircases, and lacked firefighting capacity. It is also of note that the building reportedly caught fire over a decade ago in 2008, Ghosh said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina earlier mourned the casualties and ordered free treatment for the 73 wounded people in different hospitals. Housing Minister SM Rezaul Karim, meanwhile, called the tragedy as a man-made "massacre" attributing the blaze to flawed design of the skyscraper that was raised ignoring safety standards and violating government rules.

He said according to the government papers, the building was supposed to be a 18-storey structure while four more floors were constructed defying the design approved by the authorities. "The people, whoever they are, will not be spared . . . they will face to stern punitive actions," Karim said.

Fire service officials were yet to comment what sparked the blaze that originated at around 12.55 PM and quickly spread to two adjacent high-rise buildings while all the three structures housed offices and commercial entities including restaurants and a private TV channel. But residents in the neighbourhood said it may have originated from the eighth floor of the building.

It took fire fighter more than six hours to extinguish the blaze with armed forces personnel when five military and air force helicopters deployed to drop water and air lift the trapped people. People trapped inside were seen waving frantically and shouting for help from windows on the upper floors of the building when passersby stood watching and praying below as heavy smoke deterred rescuers efforts to get close to them.

Firefighters, however, shattered the building's glass walls to free toxic gas and rescued over 70 people. Despite the end of the search campaign inside the ravaged structures, police blocked a major thoroughfare that passed through the structures for safety reasons as broken glasses were dangling from the largely glass-fitted outer structures of the buildings.

Several government authorities, including the fire service, overnight launched investigations into the fire while fire service officials said their 5-member committee was asked to submit report within seven days. Fire officials said the blaze erupted on the eighth floor of the building and gradually went upward engulfing ninth, 10th and 11th floors, but could not immediately say what sparked the inferno.

Five military and air force helicopters were deployed to drop water on the blaze as flames and thick black smoke poured out of the windows. The fire broke out just over a month after a massive blaze in Dhaka’s old quarter killed at least 70 people and injured 50 others while fire service officials attributed the blaze to chemicals illegally stored in dilapidated buildings there.

In 2012, a fire at a nine-storey garment factory near Dhaka killed 111 workers.