Kazi Nazmuzzaman, assistant director of the Fire Service and Civil Defence, has said a six-storey building in the city’s Shahjadpur that caught fire, killing four persons, was not built following the plan of the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) and fire safety rules.
“The building was not built as per the Rajuk-approved plan. There was no fire safety plan or fire safety measures in the building. It has a narrow staircase, which is only three feet wide, and the windows along the stairs were closed with glasses for which the smoke could not come out," Nazmuzzaman told the press on Monday.
He said the fire broke out on the second floor of the building at 12:31pm and was brought under control within half an hour at 01:04pm by two firefighting engines.
The building has a hardware shop on the first floor, a beauty parlour for women on the second and a residential hotel from the third to sixth floor, he said.
Soon after the fire broke out and smoke engulfed the entire building, the residents of the hotel tried to reach the sky parlour of the building, but they could not do that as the rooftop gate was locked, and they died due to suffocation, he said.
They could have survived the fire if the smoke had come out of the building through the windows along the staircase, he said. "But the windows were closed with glasses."
He said they recovered four male bodies from the staircase and a toilet on the sixth floor and handed over those to the police.
The cause behind the fire and extent of damage could not be determined without investigation, he said, adding that an investigation committee will be formed to probe the fire.
One of the four deceased was identified as Miron, 45.
