Tejgaon slum fire under control; hundreds of shanties gutted
A fire that broke out at a slum in Kunipara in the capital's Tejgaon area on Monday (13 March) was brought under control after two and half hours of effort.
"Eleven firefighting units brought the blaze under control at 10:10pm after it originated around 7:52pm," Shahjahan Sikder, duty officer of the Fire Service and Civil Defence told The Business Standard.
"Due to dense settlement, the fire quickly spread to the surrounding houses and gutted hundreds of shanties there," he added.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Abdul Jabbar, a local resident, said, "The fire has spread terribly. Many fire service units are working. They have to gain momentum to put the fire out."
According to him, mostly garment workers, rickshaw pullers, mason and lower income people live in the slum paying around Tk2,000-3,500 per month for rent. There are hundreds of multi-storied houses made of wood and tin shed in the slum where each floor houses one family in these multi-storied tin sheds.
"There are thousands of shanties in the slum surrounded by industrial area plots. Hundreds of slum dewellers had to leave their home empty handed after the fire broke out," he added.
So far, no casualty has been reported and the fire service officials could not ascertain the damage immediately.
Lt Col Mohammad Tajul Islam Chowdhury, director (operations and maintenance) in a press briefing told media that they have primarily assumed that some 11 tin shed multi-storied homes sheltering around 50 families were gutted in the fire.
The fire service director also said that most of the slum houses have shops on the ground floor and the fire might have originated from a gas leakage or electrical short circuit there.
When asked what took so long to douse the fire, he blamed the traffic congestion and narrow alleys in the slum area.
"Fire service units had to wait in traffic congestion and when they get there firefighters had to struggle to get into the slum. Moreover, water wasn't available at first to douse the fire.," he added.
Earlier on 26 February, several hundreds of shanties were gutted in another massive fire in the Mohakhali Korail slum. A few families from Beltola area of the slum were also displaced due to the fire.
