A devastating fire broke out at the FR Tower in Banani on Thursday (Mar 28) afternoon. In the inferno, 25 persons lost their lives and 100 were wounded. This incident has revived memories of another fire incident in the same building on Aug 31, 2008.
That day, the fire originated from the basement. After the incident 11 years ago, the fire security of FR Tower came under question.
Fire service director, Siddiq Md. Zulfiqer Ahmed, said, “There isn’t any fire extinguishing system at the FR Tower.”
In the 2008 incident, the fire was from a car kept in parking and it engulfed the building in smoke; at that time, 20 persons were injured while trying to leave the building in a hurry. Around 100 persons were locked in the building and the fire service brought the fire under control after two hours.
Former senior vice president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services, Rasel T Ahmed, who was among the people who witnessed the incident in 2008, says, “At that time we, I was working in an office on the 20th floor and found that the fire security at FR Tower was very weak.”
“Since we could not leave, we took refuge on the roof.”
He also slammed the management of the building saying that even after the incident in 2008, no measure was taken to ramp up security.