Daily Bangla Times: Narayanganj: At least one died and nine others were injured as a building caught alight following an explosion in a food warehouse on Saturday morning at Nitaiganj, one of the oldest business hubs in Narayanganj.

A total of five units of firefighters brought the flame under control after a one-hour frantic effort.

The incident took place in a two-storey century-old building at Dailpatti lane in the area about 9:00am on the day.

‘The deceased is Awlad Hossain. Of the injured, Sarkar Hossain, Jahangir Sentu, Raju, Bishu and others are taking treatment at Narayanganj and Dhaka hospitals,’ said Narayanganj district superintendent of police Golam Mostofa Rashel.

The police official added that truck drivers, shop owners and labourers were among the victims.

The affected building owned by the district Atta-Maida Mill Malik Samity former president Ilias Hossain was declared abandoned about 10 years ago, but its ground floor was still being used as a warehouse for groceries, and workers used to live on the second floor, according to the police and witnesses.

On September 4, 2020, a blast in Pashchim Talla Baitus Salam Mosque in Narayanganj killed at least 37 people.

Narayanganj Fire Service and Civil Defence deputy assistant director MD Fakhruddin told reporters that three units of firefighters rushed to the spot on information and two more joined later to bring the fire under control.

With the help of local people, firefighters recovered 10 people; of them one was dead and nine were injured, he said, adding that of the nine, four were sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, four to Narayanganj 300-bed hospital and the remaining one took treatment on his own and went home.

DMCH police outpost in-charge Md Bachchu Mia said that one of the four named Awlad died at the burn unit of the hospital.    

Fakhruddin explained that the building caught fire following the explosion that occurred with a bang and brought the rear of the old structure down.

‘Fire crews are working. We are yet to find the exact cause of explosion and fire,’ he said, hinting that there was a gas line on the north side of the building.

Building explosions have recently become a much talked-about issue in the country, especially following two such back-to-back occurrences — one near the Science Laboratory crossing and the other at Old Dhaka’s Siddique Bazar near Gulistan in the capital — killing at least 28 people and injuring dozens.

A missive blast at a seven-storey building in Gulistan’s Siddique Bazar on March 7 left over 100 injured and 23 dead till writing the report.  

On March 5, three people died and 12 others were injured when a three-storey building partially collapsed due to an explosion in Science Lab area in Dhaka. The death toll in this blast has risen to five so far.

According to officials, 14 similar explosions have been recorded since 2014 for which gas was blamed for such accidents. The security agencies did not find any bomb-like objects or explosives to have triggered the blasts.

The Fire Service, the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police and the Department of Explosives, among other entities, in their investigations after several earlier building explosions blamed gas for the incidents that killed more than 90 people and injured scores.

The authorities are, however, yet to carry out any in-depth study on explosions to see exactly what type of gas or what mixture of gases had been responsible for building blasts.

At least 82 people died in gas explosion-related fires in Narayanganj over the past three years, according to the police and the fire service.

The death toll excludes the number of victims of such fire incidents that died while receiving treatment, United News of Bangladesh reported in February.

There were 104 gas explosion-related fire incidents in Narayanganj district alone in 2022, the UNB report mentioned.