5 hours
image source, Archyde.com
A fire and massive explosion have killed at least 49 people and injured hundreds more at a storage depot near the Bangladeshi city of Chittagong, the country’s main seaport and second-largest city.
Hundreds of people had arrived to fight the fire when several shipping containers exploded.
It is believed that in some of the containers they stored chemicals.
Los industrial fires are common in Bangladesh and are often attributed to poor safety standards.
Many of the injured are said to be in critical condition and the death toll is expected to rise.
Los area hospitals are overwhelmedwith throngs of people waiting in the halls for treatment.
Doctors have asked blood donations and military clinics are also helping to treat the wounded.
image source, Getty Images
On Sunday, bodies were still being removed from the scene.
The fire broke out around 9:00 p.m. local time (3:00 p.m. GMT) on Saturday and hundreds of firefighters, policemen and volunteers They quickly arrived in the area.
While trying to extinguish the fire, a huge explosion shook the place, engulfing many of the rescuers in flames and throwing debris and people into the air.
“The explosion threw me regarding 10 meters from where I was. My hands and legs are burned,” truck driver Tofael Ahmed told the AFP news agency.
Volunteers, some with only sandals on their feet, continued to pull bodies from the smoldering wreckage Sunday morning.
Images from the followingmath show the twisted remains of metal shipping containers and the collapsed roof of a warehouse.
A local journalist told the BBC that there was a pungent smell in the air.
image source, Archyde.com
The storage site housed around 4,000 containers.
At least five firefighters were killed in the blast and several more were injured.
Many people are still missingincluding journalists reporting on the fire before the explosion.
The detonation was so large that it was heard several kilometers away and shattered the windows of nearby buildings.
A local merchant told reporters that a piece of debris flew half a kilometer and landed in his pond.
described having seen “fireballs falling like rain” following the explosion.
Many people in Bangladesh are comparing what happened to the great explosion that hit Beirut, Lebanon, in 2020explained BBC journalist Akbar Hossain.
He said that people claim to have heard the explosion 30-40 km away.
image source, Getty Images
Firefighters were still struggling to put out the fire on Sunday, but continuous explosions they made it difficult, according to firefighters.
The army has deployed sandbags to prevent chemicals from flowing into the Indian Ocean.
About 4,000 containers are stored at the Sitakunda depot, which is located regarding 40 km from Chittagong, the main seaport in Bangladesh.
Sitakunda acts as a transit point for goods traveling through the port.
A regional government official said the warehouse contained millions of dollars worth of garments waiting to be exported to western retailers.
image source, Getty Images
Bangladesh is a major supplier of clothing to the West and has prospered over the past decade to become the second largest garment exporter in the world.
But safety regulations are often ignored or poorly enforced.
And in recent years there have been several major fires and other incidents in factories.
On Sunday, the Dhaka Tribune newspaper published a list of 12 industrial disastersincluding fires, building collapses and chemical leaks, which have killed more than 1,000 people since 2005.
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