Tall & Urban News

The death toll from a horrific blaze that ripped through a Dhaka high-rise building on Thursday, March 28, 2019, has climbed to 25, Bangladeshi police said, as government officials vowed tough action to improve lax safety standards.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, March 29, Mostaq Ahmed, deputy commissioner of the Gulshan division of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said the 25 victims were identified and “24 have been handed over to their families.” Thursday’s blaze left some hundreds of people trapped inside the 23-story tower screaming for help as horrified onlookers massed outside.

Some of those stuck inside made it to safety by sliding down cables on the side of the building, but others took their chances and jumped in a bid to escape the smoke and heat. Several leaped to their deaths.

On Friday, firefighters completed the process of combing through the gutted and blackened floors of the building, and Ahmed said there was no immediate indication if others are missing.

More than 70 people were treated at the hospital in the wake of the blaze. Ataur Rahman, a restaurant worker who rushed to the scene when the fire broke out, said the image of people jumping from the building would haunt him forever.

Authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of Thursday’s fire. Rezaul Karim, minister of public works and housing, said a murder case will be filed against those responsible for the tragedy. “Definitely this is murder. It is not an accident,” he told reporters. “Legal action will be taken against those responsible for violating the building code, no matter how powerful they are.”

Enamur Rahman, minister for disaster management and relief, told Al Jazeera there was little fire-fighting equipment inside the building. “Had there been a proper fire extinguishing system, and fire drills to train inhabitants inside the buildings, then those deaths could have been averted,” he said.

Shakil Newaj, fire department director, told AFP news agency “there were no sprinklers” while “fire exits existed only in name”.

At just 0.6 and 1.2 meters wide, the building’s two exits were too narrow for people inside to leave smoothly and were blocked by obstructions that made the task harder, according to another fire department official. “If the building had proper fire exits, people would have been able to come out,” Julfikar Rahman told Reuters.

The Dhaka development authority said it was investigating how the owner, who had permission only to build 18 stories, managed to extend the building to 22 stories.

Fire disasters regularly hit Bangladesh’s major cities, killing hundreds of people in recent years. At least 96 people have died in several large fires since last month. Critics have blamed lax regulations and poor enforcement for the deadly blazes.

“We have long been telling different civic authorities that most of the high-rises in Dhaka are constructed in violation of the existing rules. But before a tragic accident like this happens, no one paid heed to our concern,” Mehedi Ahmed Ansari, director of the Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety at the Bangladesh University, told Al Jazeera.

This latest inferno erupted barely a month after at least 70 people were killed in a Dhaka apartment building where chemicals that were being stored illegally exploded – unleashing a blaze that took more than 12 hours to control.

For more on this story, go to Aljazeera