At least 7 dead and 170 injured left an explosion at a container depot in Bangladesh. Of the injured, 20 are serious.
At least seven people died and some 170 were injured after a strong explosion inside a container depot near Bangladesh’s largest seaport, police sources said.
Authorities said the blast occurred in a container depot located in the Sitakunda arealocated in the southeastern Bangladeshi city of Chittagong, and among the dead are two police fire service officers.
The fire broke out at an inland container storage facility just 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the country’s main seaport, Chittagong, fire service official Jalal Ahmed said.
Multiple firefighting units rushed to the depot to put out the fire when a massive explosion rocked the site, injuring dozens of people, including firefighters.
Chittagong’s chief doctor, Elias Chowdhury, said at least five people were killed and around 100 wounded.
At least seven people died and some 170 were injured this Sunday after a strong explosion occurred inside a container depot near the largest seaport in Bangladesh, police sources told Efe.https://t.co/GryeFsaUfH
— EFE News (@EFEnoticias) June 5, 2022
There are 20 seriously injured
Of the wounded, some 20 people were in critical condition with burns covering between 60 and 90 percent of their bodies.
Emergency crews were still working to put out the fire on Saturday night (Sunday morning in Bangladesh) and local hospitals, including military clinics, were treating the injured.
Ruhul Amin Sikder, a spokesman for the Bangladesh Inland Container Association (BICA), said some of the containers at the 30-acre private depot contained chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide.
The director of the facility, called BM Container Depot, Mujibur Rahman, said the reason for the fire is still unknown. He added that the facility employs about 600 people.
In 2020, three workers died after an oil tank exploded at another container depot in the neighboring Patenga area.
There are 19 private domestic container depots in the South Asian nation that handle the country’s exports and a large part of the import products.