Child, couple die in Chattogram slum fire

Three people, including a child and an elderly man with disability, have died after a fire swept through a slum in Chattogram.

The fire broke out at a slum near Azampur Road under the port city’s Pahartali Police Station around 7pm on Friday, Deputy Assistant Director of Agrabad Fire Service and Civil Defence Farid Ahmed Chowdhury said.

The dead have been identified as Abu Taher, 60, his wife Ayesha Begum, 50, and their one-and-a-half-year-old grandson ‘Rashed’.

Two units of the fire service rushed to the scene with 10 fire-fighting vehicles tamed the flames around 8:45pm, Chowdhury told bdnews24.com.

Initial investigation suggests that the fire erupted from a gas cylinder explosion in the shanty of Abu Taher, Agrabad Fire Station senior station officer Kabir Hossain said.

 “At least 30 shanties, owned by five individual people, were gutted in the fire.”

The fire service official could not give an immediate estimate of the extent of the damage caused by the fire.