120924 Fire breaks out in Uttara building
Bangladesh Sep 24 2012 “Building”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 1 to 29 Injured : injured 0 or unknown
Web Source: The Daily star
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=251006
Date: 24 September, 2012
Country: Bangladesh
Fire breaks out in Uttara building
Staff Correspondent
Fire fighters rescued around 50 residents trapped in their 16 storey shopping-cum-apartment complex in the capital’s Uttara Sector-3 after a generator in its basement caught fire yesterday.
Some of the residents who became ill were treated for smoke inhalation at the scene, said fire service officials.
The fire, originating around 7:00pm in Tropical Alauddin Tower Shopping Complex, went up the generator’s wiring to the seventh floor while thick black plumes engulfed the entire building.
People on the first six floors, up to which the shopping complex is situated, came out unhurt. The residents of the apartments above were trapped, with some seen waving flashlights and clothes to attract the attention of fire fighters, said witnesses.
Fire fighters used megaphones to advise them to move to the roof and brought them down using an aerial ladder platform after dousing the fire around three hours later.
“It was absolute darkness and we could not breathe,” said one resident, Rafiqul Islam, trapped on the seventh floor with his wife and two daughters, adding, “we felt our way to the top using the stairs before being rescued.”
A total of 13 fire fighting units from the capital and Gazipur rushed to the spot and carried out the rescue operation.
Posts and Telecommunications Minister Shahara Khatun, Inspector General of Police Hassan Mahmood Khandker and Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Benazir Ahmed visited the scene.