Building Explosion in Bangladesh Capital Kills at Least 17

Fire officials carry a body of a victim after an explosion in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on March 7, 2023. (Abdul Goni/AP Photo)

An explosion in a commercial building in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Tuesday resulted in 17 fatalities and more than 100 injuries, with the death toll likely to increase as rescue efforts continue, local authorities said.

Police said the explosion occurred in a six-story building in the capital’s Gulistan area at around 4.50 p.m. local time, severely damaging its first two floors, Dhaka Tribune reported.

The explosion also damaged some surrounding structures. The cause of the blast is unclear, but police suspect a gas leak.

“Due to the explosion, the glass of that building fell inside the building next to us. The signboards of that building flew and fell in front of us on the road,” Shariful, a survivor of the incident, told reporters.

Brig. Gen. Main Uddin, director general of the Fire Service and Civil Defense, said they could not enter the ground floor and they had no clear information on whether anybody was trapped.

Fire officials look for survivors after an explosion in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on March 7, 2023. (Abdul Goni/AP Photo)

He said that it was not possible to get to the ground floor as the columns that hold up the building had collapsed.

The Fire Department will seek assistance from the military after the search and rescue operation begins on Wednesday morning, Uddin added.

Inspector Bacchu Mia from the state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital said more than 50 people were sent there for treatment, and at least 14 of them were dead. The others later died from their injuries, he said.

Onlookers gather outside the site of an explosion in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on March 7, 2023. (AP Photo)

Local authorities later confirmed on Tuesday that 17 people died in the blast and that the death toll is expected to rise.

Dhaka deputy commissioner Md Mominur Rahman said the local administration would provide medical and financial assistance to the injured victims and the families of those killed in the blast.

“Apart from this, immediate compensation is being given by the district administration,” Rahman said, Dhaka Tribune reported.

Back-to-Back Explosions

The incident came after another explosion in a three-story building in Dhaka’s Science Lab area on Sunday killed at least three people.

On Saturday, an explosion occurred at an oxygen plant near the southeastern port city of Chittagong, which left six workers dead and several others injured.

Mirza Fakrul Islam Alamgir, secretary-general of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), raised concerns over the string of explosions and urged authorities to launch “a fair and impartial investigation” into the incidents.

“Suspicion in public minds is growing as the nature of these explosions is almost the same. So it is necessary to investigate whether these incidents are planned,” he said.

“The explosions one after another across the country are mysterious,” the BNP leader added.

Corruption and Lax Enforcement

Bangladesh has a history of fires and industrial disasters, including factories catching fire with workers trapped inside. Monitoring groups have blamed corruption and lax enforcement.

Last year, a fire at a shipping container storage depot near the country’s main Chittagong Seaport killed at least 41 people, including nine firefighters, and injured more than 100 others.

In 2021, a fire at a food and beverage factory outside Dhaka killed at least 52 people, many of whom were trapped inside by an illegally locked door.

In 2019, a blaze ripped through a 400-year-old area cramped with apartments, shops, and warehouses in the oldest part of Dhaka and killed at least 67 people. Another fire in Old Dhaka in a house illegally storing chemicals killed at least 123 people in 2010.

In 2012, about 117 workers died when they were trapped behind locked exits in a garment factory in Dhaka.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.