C T Online Desk: At least six people were killed and 30 others injured in a massive explosion in an oxygen plant in Kadam Rasul area of Sitakunda upazila in Chattogram on Saturday afternoon.
Five of the deceased are Shamsul Alam, 60, of Kadamrasul area under Sitakunda upazila, Mohammad Farid, 33, of BM Gate area under Sitakunda, Ratan Lakhret, 45, of Kamalakanda area in Netrokona, Abdul Kader, 50, of Sudharam area in Noakhali and Md Salauddin, 35, of Kamalnagar area in Laksmipur, according to Chattogram Medical College Hospital assistant director Rajib Palit.
He said that the identity of the remaining one could not be known until 11:00pm on Saturday.
The blast was so powerful that it sent debris flying across some one kilometre distance and its sound was heard from even three kilometres away, killing at least one person who was sitting half a kilometre from the place of blast.
Authorities could not say for certain what caused the explosion, but witnesses believed the explosion to have occurred during the refueling of a gas cylinder.
Sitakuna upazila nirbahi officer Shahadat Hossain said that the blast death toll reached six as of 8:30pm.
‘The rescue operation is going on,’ said Chattogram additional superintendent of police Abu Tayeb Mohammad Arif, adding that the death toll might go up as a number of the victims were in a critical condition.
Chattogram Fire Service and Civil Defence deputy assistant director Abdul Hamid Mia said that the explosion occurred at about 4:30pm at Sheema Oxygen Plant, an industrial oxygen refilling plant.
Nine firefighting units from three fire stations were working at the spot to contain the blaze from the blast and rescue the victims, he said.
Deceased Shamsul Alam’s son-in-law Mohammad Salahuddin said that parts of a cylinder hit his father-in-law while he was reading a newspaper at a tea stall about 500 metres away from the oxygen plant.
He said that Shamsul was rushed to the Chattogram Medical College Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.
‘I was at my home, 1.5 kilometres from the oxygen plant, during the explosion. Windows of my house burst open under the impact of the blast,’ said Salahuddin.
An injured named Mohammad Azad, who was undergoing treatment at the CMCH casualty ward, said that the explosion occurred during the refilling of the cylinder.
‘I was about 100 metres away from the spot. A piece of iron hit me all of a sudden,’ he said.
Brigadier General Shahim Ahsan, director of the Chattogram Medical College Hospital, told New Age that a total of 24 persons were taken to the hospital till 8:30pm after the explosion at Sitakunda and of them six were found dead.
‘Eighteen people are undergoing treatment at different wards of the hospital,’ he said.
‘We have preparations for providing the best treatment. Some of the physicians and nurses were called back to join their duty,’ he said.
Sitakuna UNO Shahadat said that some injured were admitted to local hospitals in Sitakunda and they were out of danger.
Mahmud Ullah Maruf, additional deputy commissioner (general) of Chattogram, told New Age that the district administration on Saturday evening formed a seven-member probe committee, headed by additional district magistrate Rakib Hasan, to investigate into the incident of explosion.
‘The committee was asked to submit the probe report within five work days,’ he said.
The injured included Mohammad Forkan, 33, Mohammad Nur Hossain, 30, Abdul Motaleb, 52, Mohammad Arafat, 22, Maksudul Alam, 60, Md Osman, 45, Mohammad Solaiman, 40, Md Ripon, 40, Mohammad Azad, 22, Ripon Maruf, 60, Probed, 40, Narayan Dhar, 64, Md Jashim, 50, Fancy, 26, Md Jahed, 30, Mujibul Hoque, 45, Rosy Begum, 20, and Nasim Shahriar, 26, said Rajib Palit.
Earlier, on June 4, 2022, at least 51 people, including 10 firefighters, were killed and more than 200 injured in a huge fire and the massive explosion it caused at BM Container Depot in Sitakunda upazila of Chattogram, just half a kilometre from the place of the fresh explosion. That fire took until June 8 to be doused.
The probe body on the BM Container Depot blast found that the fire originated from the unauthorised chemical hydrogen peroxide stored in some containers at the depot.
The probe body also blamed the owner of BM Container Depot and the supervising authorities for their alleged negligence for the massive fire and explosion.
BM Container Depot, a Netherland-Bangladesh joint venture, was set up as an inland container depot that has been in operation since May 2011. It is one of 19 such container depots in Chattogram.
The chairman of the depot is Dutch businessman Bert Pronk, who also has other investments in Bangladesh, while its managing director is Mustafizur Rahman of the Smart Group of Industries.
Chattogram south district Awami League treasurer Mujibur Rahman, also the editor of Chattogram local daily Purbadesh, is also a director of BM Container depot.
Al Razi Chemical Complex Limited, a sister concern of the depot owner’s Smart Group of Industries, owned the hydrogen peroxide-laden containers.
Sitakunda police sub-inspector Ashraf Siddique on June 8, 2022 filed a case against eight employees of the depot three days after the fire. The owners of the depot and Al Razi Chemical Complex Limited were spared in the case. However, police allegedly failed to arrest anyone in the case.
BM Container Depot resumed its operation on November 16, 2022 five months after the fire incident.
