CEPZ fire: Committee for probe

A committee has been set up by Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA) to investigate the fire that broke out at a shoe factory in Chittagong Export Processing Zone (CEPZ) early on Sunday.

BEPZA’s Superintending Engineer Nurul Islam will head the probe committee and they have been asked to submit the report within seven working days, General Manager for Chittagong EPZ Abdur Rashid told bdnews24.com.

The fire broke out around 3:30am at ‘Papella Shoes’ located on road-4 in the EPZ area.

It took a lot of time for the fire fighters to enter the factory as its main gate was shut. It took the fire-fighters a good seven hours to control the fire, despite the rains.

There were no workers present during the fire which broke out at 3.30am, production-in-charge Mokhlesur Rahman said.

The factory operated till midnight on Saturday after which the workers went home only to find it ablaze when they returned for work on Sunday, he said.

‘Papella Ltd.’ is owned by MA Kalam and the factory employs almost 650 workers.

The factory’s manager Sher Bahadur told bdnews24.com, “The fire has gutted a massive amount of chemicals, raw leather for shoe-manufacturing and finished footwear that were stored in the factory.”

However he said it was still not possible to quantify the exact loss due to the fire.