At least 16,000 incidents of fire have occurred around the country in the last 10 years, killing 1,590 people, Supreme Court lawyer Syeda Rizwana Hossain said on Thursday (Mar 28).
Rizwana, also the chief executive of Bangladesh Environment Lawyers Association (BELA), revealed the data, compiled from information received from several organizations, while addressing a public hearing on fire safety issues in Old Dhaka, Focus Bangla reported.
Dhaka South Mayor Sayeed Khokon was chief guest at the public hearing, held at CIRDAP auditorium in the capital.
Rizwana spoke particularly about the horrific Nimtoli fire, which killed 124 people – 11 from the same family – in 2010, and the Chawkbazar fire that killed 71 people in February this year.
In both cases, investigations revealed that the fires were caused and took devastating form because of the unregulated chemical warehouses in Old Dhaka, Rizwana said.
After the Nimtoli fire, the government directed the warehouse owners to move their businesses, but the order has not been implemented in the last nine years, she added.
In fact, no legal step has been taken against the owner of the chemical warehouse that caused the Nimtoli fire, she said.
With an area of 1,050 acres, Old Dhaka has 24,000 buildings divided among 11 wards of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC). Most of those buildings are not Rajuk-approved, Rizwana said at the hearing.
The area is highly congested, with a population density of nearly 1,100 persons per acre. In such a populated and risky area, there are nearly 15,000 chemical warehouses, she added.
According to Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence, at least 468 fire incidents were reported in Lalbagh, Hazaribagh, Sadarghat and Siddikbazar areas of Old Dhaka in 2018 alone.
Some of the survivors of the Chawkbazar fire were present at the hearing. Among them, Md Nasir Uddin, Monsur Ali Dipu and Moyna Begum, spoke at the event.
The public hearing was attended by Brig Gen Ali Ahmed Khan, director general of Fire Service; Dr Sultan Ahmed, director general of the Department of Environment; Dr Syeda Sultana Razia, head of chemical engineering department at BUET; Dr Farida Nilufar, an architect; Sara Hossain, a lawyer and honorary executive director of Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST); Sheepa Hafiza, executive director of Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK); and Shamsul Huda, executive director of Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD).
Rights activist and former caretaker government adviser Advocate Sultana Kamal presided over the hearing.