A fire at a six-storey shopping centre in the Bangladeshi capital has killed at least 43 people and injured dozens of others, the country’s health minister said.
Samanta Lal Sen said the fire broke out late on Thursday in the building in the Bailey Road area of the capital, Dhaka.
Firefighters rescued survivors and pulled out dead bodies, and by early Friday at least 43 people had died and 22 others were being treated, he said.
Crews said the fire began in a restaurant on the first floor of the building in the heart of the capital, and many people were trapped by the flames.
Mr Sen said at least 33 people, including women and children, were declared dead at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, while at least 10 others died after being taken to the Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery.
More than a dozen firefighting units were deployed to douse the blaze that broke out at the Green Cosy Cottage Shopping Mall, said Fire Service and Civil Defence director General Brigadier General Main Uddin.
At least 75 people, including 42 who were unconscious, were rescued from the building, crews said.
The emergency services were called to a fire at the Kacchi Bhai restaurant, according to the Daily Bangladesh newspaper.
Witnesses told of how they escaped from the blaze by climbing down the building’s pipes.
“We were at the sixth floor when we first saw smoke racing through the staircase," said a restaurant manager called Sohel, the AFP news agency reported.
He added: “A lot of people rushed upstairs. We used a water pipe to climb down the building.
"Some of us were injured as they jumped from upstairs."
Another witness, Mohammad Altaf, told the Reuters news agency that he had narrowly escaped the blaze through a broken window.
He said two of his colleagues, who had helped to get people out, both later died in the fire.
