At least 49 people lost their live and more than 300 got injured, after a fire tore broke out on a container depot in southeastern Bangladesh over the weekend.

According to CNN, the fire started on June 3 at the BM Container Depot in Sitakunda, in Chittagong District. Among the dead are at least nine firefighters who had been deployed to douse the flames, while another two firefighters remain missing.

Firefighters are now trying to extinguish the blaze, as containers that container with chemicals including hydrogen peroxide or sulphur continued to erupt, Reuters reported.

The cause of the fire remains unknown, but fire service officials said it may have originated from a vessel of hydrogen peroxide and diffused to other containers.

Commenting on the fire, local residents said that the blast caused the neighborhood to quake, and subsequently broke some of the glass windows on local infrastructure.

Now, the depot’s authorities will provide 10 lakh Bangladeshi taka (around $11,200) in compensation to each family of the workers who died in the fire.

They also promised to pay six lakh Bangladeshi taka (around $6700) to each critically injured worker who lost body parts in the fire and four lakh Bangladeshi taka (around $4500) to other injured workers.

The company has also established a five-member inquiry committee to probe the deadly incident.

Source: Safety4sea

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	Issue 79 of Robban Assafina       (May./June 2022)