Bangladesh depot fire sees dozens left dead

CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh－At least 49 people have died after a fire that sparked a huge chemical explosion and was still blazing on Sunday at a shipping container depot in Bangladesh, officials said.

The toll was expected to rise with more than 300 people injured, some of them seriously, and eyewitnesses said they had seen unrecovered bodies in the facility near the major southern port of Chittagong.

Several hundred rescuers were battling the blaze that broke out late Saturday in Sitakunda, about 40 kilometers from Chittagong, when a number of containers holding chemicals exploded, the fire brigade told reporters.

Elias Chowdhury, regional chief doctor, said that the number of dead was 49 but would increase. Firefighters continued to douse pockets of fire with hoses on Sunday.

"More than 300 people are injured," Chowdhury said.

"These people, including several journalists who were doing Facebook lives, are still not accounted for."

One rescue volunteer told reporters: "There are still some bodies inside the fire-affected places. I saw eight or 10 bodies."

The injured included at least 40 firefighters and 10 police officers, Chittagong regional police chief Anwar Hossain said. At least nine firefighters were among those killed.

"The number of fatalities is expected to rise as some of the injured are in critical condition," Hossain said.

The container depot held hydrogen peroxide, fire service chief Brigadier General Main Uddin said. "We still could not control the fire because of the existence of this chemical."

Chowdhury said the injured had been taken to different hospitals in the region as doctors were brought back from holiday to help.

Requests for blood donations for the injured flooded social media.

Emergency crews were still working to put out the fire on Sunday morning, and military clinics were helping to treat the injured.

Mominur Rahman, chief administrator of Chittagong district, said the government had deployed about 200 soldiers to the depot to prevent chemicals flowing into the sea.

The fire was largely under control, he said, but there were "still several pockets of fire".

"Firefighters are trying to control these pockets of fires. The fire has spread to at least seven acres of land inside the depot."

An investigation has been ordered, he said.

The depot contained millions of dollars of garments waiting to be exported to Western retailers, for whom Bangladesh is a key supplier.

Ruhul Amin Sikder, spokesman for the Bangladesh Inland Container Association, said some of the containers at the depot, which covers 12 hectares contained chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide.

The director of the B.M. Container Depot, Mujibur Rahman, said the cause of the fire was still unknown and added that the facility employs about 600 people.

Agencies Via Xinhua