16 shops, 4 factories gutted in city furniture market fire
A man salvages usable items from the remains of a fire which burnt down 16 shops, four factories and four tin-shed houses in the city's Panthapath yesterday.Photo: STAR
Sixteen shops, four factories and four tin-shed houses were burnt down as a fire swept through a furniture market in the capital's Panthapath early yesterday. However, no one was injured, said police and fire fighters. The fire originated around 2:00am at a shop, Paragon Furniture, at the roadside "Foreign Furniture Market" and soon spread to other adjacent shops and houses, according to Fire Service and Civil Defence officials. Eleven fire fighting units from four stations rushed to the spot and could douse the fire after a three-hour-long effort, they said. Sixteen out of 48 furniture shops in the area and four factories were gutted while two to three other shops were partially damaged, Shawkat Ali, general secretary of Panthapath Bahumukhi Furniture Babosayee Kalyan Samity, told The Daily Star. He added that his four furniture shops had burnt to the ground. Masud Alam, a worker of Rony Furniture, said five workers including him had been sleeping inside the factory and suddenly awakened by the raging flame. They could not save their belongings but could get themselves out of the factory unhurt. The blaze burnt to ashes everything they had-- cell phones, clothes and cash, they lamented. There were many tin-shed houses at the back of the furniture shops. Of those, four houses, in which over 80 families lived, were gutted. AK Azad, owner of a house, said he had a two-storey house, the ground floor of which had housed a furniture shop and 21 rooms on the tin-roofed first floor had been rented out to families. The fire did not damage the shop much but burnt everything on the upper floor. The fire fighters could not start their operation upon arrival as enough water was not available nearby, locals said. Later, water was supplied from reservoirs at Bashundhara City shopping mall to the area. Sheikh Mizanur Rahman, deputy director (Dhaka division) of the fire service, said an electric short circuit or mosquito coil or burning cigarette butts might have caused the fire. Most of the destroyed houses and furniture shops were made of tin, bamboo fences and wood. Wooden furniture in those shops and varnish used for furniture helped spread the fire quickly. Leaves of about 50 trees on both sides of the road were also burnt.
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