At least 49 people have died and hundreds have been injured after a fire sparked a huge chemical explosion at a shipping container depot in Bangladesh, officials said on Sunday.
The toll was expected to rise, with some of the more than 300 people injured in serious condition, officials said, while volunteers reported that there were more bodies inside the smouldering, wreckage-strewn facility.
The fire started late on Saturday at the depot in Sitakunda, which stores around 4,000 containers, many of them filled with garments destined for Western retailers. The facility is about 40 kilometres from the major southern port of Chittagong.
Following the fire, containers holding chemicals exploded, engulfing firefighters, volunteers and journalists in an inferno, hurtling people and debris through the air, and turning the night sky a blazing orange.
Buildings located kilometres away rattled with the force of the blast.
Elias Chowdhury, regional chief doctor, told AFP that the number of dead was 49 but would increase. Firefighters continued to douse pockets of fire with hoses on Sunday.
"The death toll will rise as the rescue work has not been completed yet," he said said.
"These people — including several journalists who were doing Facebook lives — are still not accounted for."
Reazul Karim, operations director of the fire department, said that at least seven firefighters died and that at least four others were missing.
"Never in our fire department history have we lost so many firefighters in a single incident," Bharat Chandra, a former senior firefighter, told AFP.
"There are still some bodies inside the fire-affected places. I saw eight or 10 bodies," one volunteer told reporters.
Mujibur Rahman, the director of B.M. Container Depot, the firm operating the facility with around 600 workers, said that the cause of the initial fire was still unknown.
The container depot held hydrogen peroxide, fire service chief Brigadier General Main Uddin told reporters.
"We still could not control the fire because of the existence of this chemical," he said.
'Fireballs falling like rain'
Mohammad Ali, 60, who runs a nearby grocery store, said the blast was deafening.
"A cylinder flew around half a kilometre from the fire spot to our small pond when the explosion occurred," he told news agency AFP.
"The explosion sent fireballs into the sky. Fireballs were falling like rain. We were so afraid we immediately left our home to find refuge... We thought the fire would spread to our locality as it is very densely populated," he added.
At least five firefighters were among those killed in the port depot fire. Source: Getty / AFP
"The explosion just threw me some 10 metres from where I was standing," he said. "My hands and legs are burned."
Mr Chowdhury, the chief doctor in Chittagong, said the injured had been rushed to different hospitals as doctors were brought back from holiday to help.
Requests for blood donations for the injured flooded social media.
There were over 34 killed and 300 injured in the port depot fire. Source: AFP, Getty / -/AFP via Getty Images
Army choppers
The army said it had deployed 250 troops to prevent chemicals flowing into the Indian Ocean by using sandbags.
Mominur Rahman, chief administrator of Chittagong district, said that while the fire was largely under control, there were "still several pockets" that were active.
"Firefighters are trying to control these pockets of fires. The fire has spread to at least seven acres of land inside the depot," he said.
Fires are common in Bangladesh due to lax enforcement of safety rules.
Around 90 per cent of Bangladesh's roughly 100 billion dollars in trade — including clothes for H&M, Walmart and others — passes through the Chittagong port at the northern end of the Bay of Bengal.
Exports have been booming since late last year, as the global economy recovers from the pandemic. In the first five months of the year, shipments were up more than 40 per cent.
At least 38 people have died after a fire that sparked a huge chemical explosion at a shipping container depot in Bangladesh, officials said.
The toll is expected to rise with over 300 people injured.
Eyewitnesses said they had seen unrecovered bodies in the facility near the major southern port of Chittagong.
Hundreds of rescuers were battling the blaze that broke out late Saturday in Sitakunda, about 40 kilometres from Chittagong, when a number of containers holding chemicals exploded, the fire brigade told reporters.
Elias Chowdhury, chief doctor of the region, told AFP that many people, "including several journalists who were doing Facebook lives, are still not accounted for".
"There are still some bodies inside the fire-affected places. I saw eight or 10 bodies," one volunteer told reporters.
The injured include at least 40 firefighters and 10 police officers, Chittagong regional police chief Anwar Hossain told AFP.
At least five firefighters were among those killed.
"The number of fatalities is expected to rise as some of the injured are in critical condition," Mr Hossain said.
Eyewitnesses said the blast engulfed people who had been battling the fire.
"I was standing inside the depot. The explosion just threw me some 10 metres from where I was standing. My hands and legs are burnt," driver Tofael Ahmed said.
The explosion was so loud it shook residential buildings several kilometres from the depot, said Mohammad Ali, who has a nearby grocery store.
"A cylinder flew around half a kilometre from the fire spot to our small pond when the explosion occurred," he said.
"The explosion sent fireballs in the sky. Fireballs were falling like rain," he said.
"We were so afraid we immediately left our home to find refuge ... we thought the fire would spread to our locality as it is very densely populated," he said.
The container depot held hydrogen peroxide, fire service chief Brigadier General Main Uddin told reporters.
"We still could not control the fire because of the existence of this chemical," he said.
Mr Chowdhury, the chief doctor in Chittagong, said the injured had been rushed to different hospitals in the region as doctors were brought back from holiday to help.
Requests for blood donations for the injured flooded social media.
Emergency crews were still working to put out the fire Sunday morning and military clinics were helping to treat the injured.
Mominur Rahman, chief administrator of Chittagong district, said the government has deployed some 200 army troops to the depot to prevent chemicals flowing into the sea.
He said while the fire was largely under control, there were "still several pockets of fire".
"Firefighters are trying to control these pockets of fires. The fire has spread to at least seven acres of land inside the depot," he said.
Mr Rahman said a probe has been ordered.
He said the depot contained millions of dollars of garments waiting to be exported to Western retailers, for whom Bangladesh is a key supplier.
Ruhul Amin Sikder, spokesman for the Bangladesh Inland Container Association (BICA), said some of the containers at the 30-acre private depot contained chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide.
The director of the BM Container Depot, Mujibur Rahman, said the fire's cause was still unknown. He added the facility employs about 600 people.
Fires are common in Bangladesh due to lax enforcement of safety rules.
In July 2021, 54 people died when a blaze ripped through a massive food-processing factory outside the capital Dhaka.
In February 2020, 70 people were killed when another fire engulfed several Dhaka apartment blocks.
