Dhaka Tribune journalist Shamima Rita has been awarded the “Best Investigative Report-2021” award from Dhaka division by The Hunger Project Bangladesh and The Asia Foundation.
Rita was nominated for the award for one of her articles, titled ‘Why so many fires in Narayanganj?’
The award was handed over to the newspaper’s Narayanganj district correspondent Rita at a program in the capital on Thursday.
Bangla Daily Prothom Alo’s Manikganj correspondent Abdul Momin and Dainik Alokito Protidin’s Shariatpur correspondent Saiful Islam were awarded for the second and third best reports at the event.
Also Read - Why so many fires in Narayanganj?
On July 13 last year, Dhaka Tribune published the article following the July 8 devastating fire at a factory of Hashem Foods Limited in Rupganj that claimed 52 lives.
The story revealed that the industrial city of Narayanganj continued to be a hotspot for fire incidents, with at least 105 lives lost in scores of blazes over the past year and a half. Factories remain vulnerable to fire risks for years as more than 90% of them do not have proper firefighting equipment, while the rest, though having firefighting systems, do not meet safety standards.
Fires frequently tend to get out of control because the workers of many factories lack basic fire safety equipment and training as well. Poor designs of the factories also make fighting and escaping fires particularly difficult.