A fire broke out at a readymade garment (RMG) factory at Dhaka Export Processing Zone (DPEZ) in Ashulia, on the outskirts of the capital, on Saturday night.
Nine firefighting units managed to douse the flame five hours after the second unit of by Paxar Bangladesh Limited, a subsidiary of US-based Avery Dennison Corporation, caught fire around 11pm on Saturday.
Deputy Assistant Director (DAD) of Fire Service and Civil Defence (Zone-4) Abdul Alim, confirmed the matter to the Bangladesh Post on Sunday.
DAD Alim said they initially suspected that fire causes broke out from an electrical short circuit but later they found negligence of the factory staffers caused the incident.
He said, “It was a in fact a warehouse. The fire broke out on the second floor of a five-storied building owned by the Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority (BEPZA). Paxar authorities rented the floor and set up its office and warehouse on it violating rules and regulations since laws don’t permit to do so.
In addition, “We found fire system on that floor was not fully functional as the fire hydrant system is supposed to be run on two methods – one with electrical pump and another with a diesel pump. But the diesel pump was not functional indicating that how much negligence they showed there,” he added.
When contacted, BEPZA General Manager Abdus Sobhan, “It wasn’t a warehouse, rather it’s a level factory of Paxar and operation was full swing with two shifts.
He, however, denied allegations on the fire system saying BEPZA owns the building but allegation on inactive fire hydrant system is not true.
“In fact, highly flammable substance including ‘filament thread’, and ‘adhesive level’ were stored there helping fire spread quickly. That is why fire hydrant system couldn’t work alone.”
No causalities reported in the incident, DAD Alim said.
