Bangladeshi firefighters try to extinguish a fire that break out from an explosion in a factory in the key Bangladeshi garment manufacturing town of Tongi, just north of the capital Dhaka, on September 11, 2016.
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“There were some 100 people inside when the fire broke out”, said one Tampaco Foils official.
A worker, who survived the tragedy, said many of them were inside the factory during the explosion because that was the time for morning shift workers to take the charges from their night shift colleagues.
Mohammed Parvez, a doctor at Tongi Hospital, said 17 dead bodies were in the hospital’s mortuary and four were at the state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
A boiler exploded and triggered a fire at a packaging factory near Bangladesh’s capital on Saturday, killing at least 23 workers and injuring dozens, officials said.
“10 bodies have been recovered from the accident site shortly after the accident”, he said and added two more people succumbed to their injuries later in a hospital.
At least 30 people were injured, as flames spread quickly through the building.
According to the company’s website, the packaging factory supplies multinational and domestic brands including British-American Tobacco Bangladesh Limited and Nestle Bangladesh Limited.
“Police have filed a case in relation to the fire in which 31 people have so far died”, said Farid Ahmed, deputy inspector general of the country’s factory inspection department. “Survivors say workers were forced to go inside the building, even though a visible crack was forming”, as NPR’s Jim Zarroli reported earlier this year.
Authorities have not yet determined the exact cause of the explosion.
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People in Bangladesh gather near an industrial complex after a factory fire which killed at least 20 people.
