• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > Bangladesh

Another Fire at Bangladesh Garment Sweatshop Kills 10 Workers

  • In this file photo, relatives are seen at the morgue of Dhaka Medical College Hospital after a deadly fire in a plastic factory near Dhaka in Bangladesh last week.

    In this file photo, relatives are seen at the morgue of Dhaka Medical College Hospital after a deadly fire in a plastic factory near Dhaka in Bangladesh last week. | Photo: Reuters

Published 16 December 2019
Opinion

The blaze comes four days after a devastating fire at a plastics factory, operating without proper government permissions, just outside Dhaka.

At least 10 people were killed Sunday when a fire swept through a fan factory near Bangladesh's capital, police said, the second such accident in less than a week.

RELATED:

Fire at New Delhi Factory Kills 43 Workers Sleeping Inside

Firefighters recovered 10 bodies as the fire ripped through the three-story factory at Gazipur, on the outskirts of Dhaka, local police official, Jabedul Islam, said. It was not immediately clear how many workers were inside the factory when the fire broke out and what caused the blaze, he added.

"Firefighters are still searching inside the factory," Islam said, adding it took scores of firefighters two hours to bring the fire under control.

The blaze comes four days after a devastating fire at a plastics factory, operating without proper government permissions, just outside Dhaka killed at least 19 people.

Such accidents in factories have been common in Bangladesh yet authorities still fail to address the issue.

There are around 4,000 factories employing nearly four million workers with a revenue of nearly US$25 billion each year from exports predominantly catering to the U.S. and European markets and profit fashion corporate giants.

According to figures from the Bangladesh Firefighters Service, between 2004-2018, at least 1,970 people died in the heavily populated and poverty-stricken South Asian country in the 89,923 fires reported during that time.

Last February a massive fire in the old section of Dacca almost completely destroyed seven buildings, killing at least 70 people and injuring 55. That fire began in a building housing a warehouse for plastic products.

The worst industrial accident in Bangladesh’s history occurred in 2013, when 1,134 people died and more than 2,500 were injured when the eight-story Rana Plaza building housing five textile workshops collapsed.

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.