Hardware store fire leaves 1 dead

A fire at a hardware supplies store at Dhaka’s Tejgaon has left one dead and 10 others with burn injuries.

Police said Abdul Latif, 70, succumbed to his burns around 1am on Friday.

Quoting doctors, Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) police outpost’s Sub-Inspector Fazlur Rahman said Latif, a rickshaw-van driver by profession, had suffered 90 percent burns.

The fire broke out around 2:45pm on Thursday at the store housed on the ground floor of a three-storey building beside Tejgaon Women’s College, police said.

Tejgaon Police Station OC Mazharul Islam said four fire-fighting units had put out the fire around 3:30pm.

The injured have been identified as ‘Motaleb’, 12, Shafiul Azam, 45, Khalilur Rahman, 36, Mahmudul Hasan, 37, Zahirul Islam, 60, Md Masud, 25, ‘Zakir’, 25, and ‘Uzzal’, 25, Shammi Akhter,19, and Iffat Ara Yasmin, 19.

They all were admitted to the DMCH burns unit immediately.

Among them, conditions of Motaleb, Khalilur and Shafiul were critical, doctors said. They suffered 75 to 95 percent burns which have damaged their windpipes.

Some of the others sustained 35 to 25 percent burns on their bodies.

Shammi is a BBA student at World University and Yasmin studies Electrical Engineering at Northern University. Their legs were burned in the fire.

Quoting the injured, police said there had been an explosion of sorts in the shop that led to the fire.