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Bangladesh clothing factory hit by deadly fire, 10 dead

Assistant director of Fire Service Debashish Bardhan said a team of 14 Engineers Brigade, led by Lt Col Md Shafiul Azam, visited the site at about 9:30pm on Sunday and joined the rescue team as planned on Monday morning.

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Fire officials said late on Saturday they had been unable to enter the building and search through the debris, amid fears that the death toll could rise further.

Fire fighters toiled through the night but officials said the structure was still too risky to enter for search and rescue operation.

Witnesses said the volunteers tried several times to enter the collapsed building in search of missing workers, but were forced back by thick-black smokes and flames.

The cause was not immediately known, but officials said a boiler explosion was the probable trigger.

At least 29 people died when a boiler exploded at a four-story factory near the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka on Saturday, authorities said.

Shipar added that an investigation would be carried out and if anyone was found guilty of negligence, action would be taken.

Mr Mikail Shipar, government secretary with the Ministry of Labour and Employment, said the government was now going to investigate safety at all of the hundreds of factories in the Tongi industrial zone.

Tighter controls have been introduced, but dozens of workers still die every year.

According to the company’s website, the packaging factory supplies multinational and domestic brands including British-American Tobacco Bangladesh Limited and Nestle Bangladesh Limited.

A series of deadly incidents at Bangladeshi factories, including the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse that killed more than 1,100 people, have raised concern over safety standards in the South Asian country’s booming, $20bn garment industry.

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A fire at a garment factory in a Dhaka suburb killed 112 workers in 2012.

Firefighters work to put out the blaze at a packaging factory in the Tongi industrial area