“A sudden sound caught my attention and I looked outside. I saw fire out there. Soon the whole building was filled with smoke. We went upstairs as we could not go out through the gate. But we were stuck on the fifth floor and could not go up as there was already a crowd. We took shelter at a restaurant on that floor.”
Kamrul Hassan, a survivor of the massive Bailey Road fire recounted the tale of terror while undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital. He works at the Mejbani Khana restaurant that was gutted in the fire on Thursday night.
The survivor said that most of the people felt sick after inhaling the smoke. He said: “People were unable to inhale in the smoke. They started running here and there. There was no place for the smoke to pass.”
In a press briefing, Health Minister Dr Samanta Lal Sen also blamed the smoke for the deaths. He said that most of the victims of the Bailey Road fire succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning.
“There was a small gap in the kitchen of that restaurant. I jumped down from there. I cannot recall anything after that,” Kamrul said about his escape.
Saying that there was no fire escape in the building, he said: “I have been working there for almost a year and I never saw any other way out without the elevator or the staircase.”
Jubair, a worker at the Khana’s restaurant on the third floor of the Green Cozy Cottage said that there was no way of ventilation in that glass-enclosed building.
“I was preparing food when the incident took place. Our cashier informed us about the fire and asked us to come upstairs. Black smoke was uprising from downstairs. We went to the rooftop. I jumped off the roof following some other people. And then I found myself in the hospital,” he continued.
Jubair also said that the gas cylinders used by the restaurants in that building were stored in the ground floor of the building.
At least 46 people were killed, and over 20 others sustained severe injuries by a devastating fire on Thursday night.
Firefighters rescued 70 people, including 42 in unconscious state, from the rooftop and different floors of the seven-storey Green Cozy Cottage.
The fire broke out at around 9:45pm.
Most of the people died as they jumped off the building or from burns or suffocation, said firefighters who brought the fire under control around 12:30am.
Fire officials say the blaze spread fast due to the presence of gas cylinders on several floors in the restaurant kitchens. People could not leave the building due to smoke in the staircase.
