Nearly 4,000 establishments in Dhaka, including shopping malls, educational institutions, banks, hospitals, hotels and media offices, are under threat of fire accidents.
At different times, Fire Service and Civil Defence inspected the buildings and gave warnings, but no positive changes have taken place.
The Fire Service says these buildings do not have fire safety certificates.
Fire Service and Civil Defence carried out two fire inspections, from January 12 to 26 and from October 26 to November 12.
During those times, it inspected 3,855 buildings and found 3,772 at fire risk.
Fire Service inspectors visited 26 offices of media organizations and found 18 of them in the high risk zone and six in risky area. Only Bangladesh Television and Jamuna TV were found to have adequate fire-fighting equipment.
Of the 433 hospitals inspected, 173 were at high risk, with 249 found to be risky.
For the safety survey, water level under the buildings, width of the exit gates, fire detection materials and other issues were taken into account.
Fire Service Director AKM Shakil Newaz said: “We carried out the surveys in 2017 and gave them two warnings, but they did not give any importance to it.”
“We told the institutions to ramp up their fire security, but they paid no heed to our warnings,” Deputy Director Debashish Bardhan added.
“Several teams are working to ensure fire safety and we will take stern measures if any institution is found lacking proper fire safety.”
173 buildings at fire risk in Old Dhaka
Meanwhile, Fire Service on Tuesday also declared a total of 173 commercial and residential buildings in Old Dhaka, including 106 wholesale and retail markets of Sadarghat, at risk of fire hazard, reports Bangla Tribune.
Sadarghat Fire Service Deputy Assistant Director (DAD) Mostafa Mohsin told reporters that 53 of these markets and multi-storey buildings were declared most vulnerable and very risky, and red-marked.
"The people concerned will inform us after setting up their fire safety systems, and we will inspect them. The red-mark will be lifted once we are happy with the inspection result," he said.
Mostafa Mohsin added: "The East Bengal Market is a 15-storey commercial building that does not have even the minimum of fire protection systems. We have twice sent them letters—in 2017 and 2018—to set up a firefighting system, yet they have not complied.
“For the sake of human life, we have declared the building very risky for fire safety."
The city authorities and Fire Service started cracking down on buildings with no or inadequate fire-fighting systems after a fire at the 23-storey FR Tower in Banani killed 26 people last month, in the wake of another devastating fire that left 70 people dead at Chawkbazar on February 20.
Both incidents also left scores of others with severe injuries.