A major fire in a high-rise office building in Dhaka, which took several hours to tackle and included at least 20 fire crews and the military, ended in at least 19 people dead and 70 others injured.

Flames immersed the ninth and tenth floors of the 22-storey building, and people were seen climbing down cables between air conditioning units and jumping from windows to escape the blaze.

Thick smoke impaired the efforts of firefighters, but at least a dozen people were rescued by hydraulic cranes.

A Facebook Live video taken by Roy Pinaki showed five people scaling down from windows while building materials fell around them. One person slipped from what appeared to be a rope that people were using to escape, bounced off utility wires and fell to the ground.

Some in the building are still unaccounted for and many are in hospital with their conditions unknown.

Bangladesh often suffers from building fires, partially due to poor enforcement of regulations.

In early 2019, a fire killed more than 80 people in the Bangladeshi capital and, in 2012, at least 112 people died in a garment factory fire.

Original Source
Independent