Fire at apartment buildings kills up to 108, injures over 100 in Bangladeshi capital

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Bangladesh fire kills up to 108, injures over 100

DHAKA, Bangladesh — A huge fire raced through several apartment buildings and devastated a rooftop wedding party in the Bangladeshi capital, killing at least 108 people and injuring more than 100 others, officials and local media said Friday.

The blaze started when an electric transformer exploded late Thursday, igniting a three-story apartment building in the Najirabazar area of old Dhaka before spreading to several other buildings, fire official Nazrul Islam said.

Rescuers recovered at least 87 charred bodies from the buildings, and other people may have died on the way to hospital, Islam said. Citing officials at the scene and hospital doctors, ATN Bangla television station said at least 108 people were killed and more than 100 injured.

“It has caused a huge devastation,” Islam told The Associated Press.

Victims included several guests of a wedding party on the roof of one of the apartment buildings, Islam said.

He said the firefighters had the blaze under control and that rescue efforts continued Friday.

Bangla Vision TV station quoted unnamed fire officials as saying the fire had spread to at least 20 apartment complexes. TV footage showed firefighters and residents carrying injured victims by tricycle rickshaws to hospitals as relatives wailed.

The state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital was overwhelmed with burned patients. Burn unit chief Shamanta Lal Sen said he had seen “such a scenario” in his 40-year career.

Bangla Vision said rescue efforts were hampered the area’s narrow roads.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed her shock over the incident and sent condolences to the families of the victim.

Authorities ordered an investigation into the cause of the fire.