C T Online Desk: Dark fumes were visible two kilometres away from BM Container Depot on Sunday morning, with a strong stench in the air. Vehicles of police, Fire Service and Civil Defence and other first responders were lined up at Keshabpur on the Dhaka-Chattogram Highway.
The fire that ripped through the depot overnight continued to burn containers of chemicals, readymade garments and other materials ready for export until the next evening.
Police barricaded the main gate of the depot. Shards from window glasses of the office at the entrance were everywhere on the way. The containers next to the office were still burning.
A group of visibly exhausted firefighters were catching their breath near the main gate after a 12-hour fight, in which they lost at least nine of their colleagues.
Brigadier General Md Main Uddin, the chief of Fire Service and Civil Defence, said 25 units from Khagrachhari, Cumilla and Feni rushed to the depot as all the units in Chattogram were unable to douse the blaze.
No one from the owners was at the scene. “We don’t know what’s in the containers. We found some drums with labels of hydrogen peroxide,” said Main Uddin.
Many blue plastic jars, some blown off, were scattered on the way to the main storage facility. The labels said the jars contained hydrogen peroxide.
According to the US National Library of Medicine, hydrogen peroxide is unstable, and nonflammable, but can support combustion as it generates a significant amount of oxygen when decomposing. Some firefighters believe the chemical may be responsible for the runaway inferno that claimed at least 49 lives.
A long tin-roofed shed is situated in the middle of the 24-acre depot. The backside of the shed has been blown away by blasts during the fire. Ash from the shed covered the surface of the area. All the containers there have been burnt.
Human body parts and pieces of metals were scattered in the area as the fireighters were trying to put out flames in two containers.
Nearly 100 members of Gasuia Committee, a group of volunteers, were searching for victims in the debris.
Plumes of dark smoke were billowing from the end of the shed. Eight bodies were recovered from near the place.
“It is difficult to work for long here due to the smoke. Some bodies have been charred so it is difficult to identify them as human remains,” said Al Amin, a volunteer.
Manager Nurul Akter Khan claimed the depot had adequate fire safety system. “It’s not that the fire spread due to hydrogen peroxide only. Burning clothes flew from the containers and caused the fire to spread as well,” he said.
At least 50 small fire extinguishers, small buckets full of sand and instructions on fire safety were in the depot.
It was unclear whether the depot had the authorisation or proper safety system to store chemicals.
An explosives inspector in the port city said the authorities of BM Container Depot did not have proper authorisation to store chemical agents in the facility, which directly contradicted with the depot officials’ earlier claim that they did have paperwork for storing such materials.
HOW THE INFERNO UNFOLDED
Md Rafique, a resident of nearby Keshabpur village, said an explosion rocked the area after 10:30pm on Saturday, nearly an hour after the fire started.
The glass and frame of village mosque’s window were broken by the impact of the blast. Windows and doors of homes have also been damaged. People left their homes after seeing the blaze following the blast, said Rafique.
Shaheen, another local who identified himself with a single name, said hundreds of people were in the depot during the fire. They included workers, drivers of covered vans and their assistant, and officials.
The workers called in the fire service after they failed to extinguish the fire. “When the firefighters started spraying water onto a container, it blew off. Everyone nearby fell,” Shaheen said.
The fire from the blast then spread from one container to another, triggering a series of blasts.
Mizanur Rahman Yusuf, a local journalist who resides some three kilometres away from the depot, said he heard the blast from his home. The blaze could also be seen from there.
