At least 14 people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion at a seven-story commercial building in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Tuesday, official sources said.
The blast occurred in Gulistan, a busy commercial area of Dhaka, Fire Department official Rashed bin Khaled said by phone.
Fire officials said the first and second floors of the building, which houses several shops selling plumbing products and daily necessities, were badly damaged.
The cause of the explosion is unclear.
At least 11 firefighters are working at the blast site, Khaled said.
Bacchu Mia, an official at the state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said more than 50 people had been rushed for treatment, of whom at least 14 had died.
Bangladesh has a history of fires and industrial disasters, including burning down a factory where workers were trapped. Watchdog groups denounce corruption and lax law enforcement.
Thousands were left homeless on Sunday after a massive fire erupted in a crowded Rohingya refugee camp in southern Bangladesh. No casualties were reported at Barkhhali camp in Cox’s Bazar district.
In 2012, about 117 workers were trapped and killed when exits were closed at a garment factory in Dhaka.
The following year saw the country’s worst industrial disaster, with the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, killing more than 1,100 people.
At least 67 people were killed in 2019 when fires ravaged a 400-year-old block of apartments, shops and warehouses in Dhaka’s oldest district. In 2010, at least 123 people died in a fire in a house illegally storing chemicals in the old city of Dhaka.
In 2021, a fire at a food and beverage factory on the outskirts of Dhaka killed at least 52 people, many of whom were trapped inside by illegally closed doors.
Last year, a fire at a shipping container warehouse near Chittagong, the country’s main seaport, killed at least 41 people, including nine firefighters, and injured more than 100 others.
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