Scores die in clothes factory inferno

( The Standard) Monday, November 26, 2012

A fire swept through a Bangladesh garment factory, killing 109 people in the nation's worst industrial blaze, which forced many to jump from high windows to escape the smoke and flames.

Firefighters battled for several hours to control the fire, which broke out on the ground floor of the nine-story Tazreen Fashion plant in Ashulia, 30 kilometers north of the capital Dhaka on Saturday.

Survivors told how panicked staff, mostly women, desperately tried to escape the factory, which the owner said made clothes for international brands including Dutch chain C&A and the Hong Kong-based Li & Fung.

 "I smelt smoke and ran downstairs and found that the place was already full with black fumes," Rabiul Islam said as he surveyed the gutted ruins of the building where many of his colleagues died.
"With another worker, I broke open an exhaust fan in the second floor and jumped to the roof of a shed next to the factory. I broke my hand but survived somehow."

Dhaka district commissioner Yusuf Harun said that the death toll was 109, including several workers who died while jumping from the upper floors. About 100 people were also injured.

 "We laid the bodies out in the grounds of a nearby school and have now started handing them over to relatives," Harun said.

The director of the fire brigade, Major Mahbub, who uses one name, said most victims died of suffocation as the blaze started on the ground-floor warehouse, trapping staff working on the night shift.

"The factory had three exits but since the fire was on the ground floor, workers could not come downstairs," he said.

The owner of the Tazreen factory, Delwar Hossain, said the cause is not yet known but he denied his premises were unsafe.

"It is a huge loss for my staff and my factory. This is the first time we have ever had a fire at one of my seven factories," he said, confirming that the premises made clothes for C&A and Li & Fung.

Tuba Group, the parent company of Tazreen Fashion, said on its website that the factory was opened in 2009 and employed 1,630 workers making polo shirts, T-shirts and jackets.

It added that the plant had 60 smoke detectors, more than 200 fire extinguishers and 18 hose reels as part of its safety equipment.

According to the Clean Clothes Campaign, an Amsterdam-based textile rights group, since 2006 at least 500 Bangladeshi garment workers have died in factory fires.  AGENCE

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