Fire sweeps through Bangladesh’s largest shopping mall

Mahmud Hossain Opu

By

Sheuli Akter

A devastating fire has again swept through Bangladesh’s largest Bashundhara shopping mall complex in the capital Dhaka.

The blaze that broke out on Sunday at about 11:00 local time on the fifth floor of the 19-storey multi-faceted shopping mall-cum-recreation center, raged through a row of shops. The blaze reportedly spread to some downward and upper floors.

Local Television also provided live coverage of the fire incident. TV footage showed huge thick black smoke billowing from the upper floors of the large complex on Sunday afternoon.

Fire fighters managed to douse the fire around 5.00pm after nearly six hours of hectic efforts.

There was reportedly no loss of life, fortunately, though the cause of the fire was not immediately known.

According to preliminary estimates, potential losses from the fire could run into millions of U.S. dollars as a large number of valuables were reportedly burnt on the fifth floor housing scores of mobile shops.

The upper part of the complex is for office use while its first eight floors serve as the shopping mall, one of the biggest in South Asia, which accommodates thousands of shops as well as a cinema and cafes.

A major fire also broke out at the shopping complex in March 2009 claiming at least seven lives and causing huge financial losses.

Sheuli Akter

Sheuli Akter, from Bangladesh, is a Special Correspondent and Editor of NsNewsWire, (Bangladesh’s First Press Newswire). Previously she had worked for Bangladesh’ top news agency, United News of Bangladesh (UNB) and top newspaper (now defunct) The Bangladesh Observer. She also gained an honourable mention in the first ever World Media Summit WMS Awards for ‘Exemplary News Professionals in Developing Countries’, receiving the award in Beijing in January 2015.