Woman dies from burns in Sukrabad fire, death toll rises to two

A husband and wife have died of their wounds, but their three-year-old son is still hospitalised

Another of the three people who suffered burn injuries after a ‘gas explosion’ in Dhaka’s Shukrabad has died, taking the death toll from the incident to two.

Thirty-year-old Nipa Begum died around 1:05am on Wednesday. She had burns on 32 percent of her body and was receiving treatment at the National Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute.

Md Tariqul Islam, resident surgeon at the burn institute, confirmed her death.

Nipa’s husband, 35-year-old Md Toton, had died from burns suffered in the same incident on Oct 1. He had burns on 50 percent of his body.

Her son, 3-year-old Bayezid, was also critically hurt, suffering injuries on 45 percent of his body.

Doctors usually consider burn victims in critical condition if they have burns on at least 30 percent of their body.

The three suffered serious burn injuries when a fire broke out at their house in the Shukrabad Bazar area on Sept 28.

They were admitted to the red unit of the burn institute’s emergency department.

Toton’s brother-in-law Nazrul Islam and his uncle Zakir Hossain admitted the family to the hospital. They said there had been a gas leak in the house for several days. When a matchstick was lit early on Saturday morning, a fire sparked and quickly spread, burning the family.

Nizam Uddin, the landlord of the building, said on the day of the incident that Toton lived on the ground floor of the building while he lived on the second floor.

Nizam said he heard a blast in the morning and ran down to see the fire. He said he did not know why the fire had started.

“The incident occurred between 4am and 4:30am. We heard a noise, came downstairs, and saw a fire through the window. Toton and the two others were sitting outside. We put out the fire and took them to the hospital. The RAB, the Fire Service, and Titas Gas came afterwards. We want to learn the cause of the incident too.”