At least 16 people were killed while over 120 were injured in a major explosion that rocked a multi-storied building in Bangladesh’s Dhaka on Tuesday.
As per initial reports, the explosion took place in the Gulistan area of Dhaka in Bangladesh. The incident was reported at around 4 pm today.
As many as 11 fire and other emergency services units were rushed to the location of the explosion so as to carry out rescue operations. The injured people were immediately rushed to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH).
The Director of DMCH, Brig Gen Md Nazul Haque said that around 120 people had sustained injuries in the massive explosion in Dhaka.
Meanwhile, the additional commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Hafiz Akter on Tuesday evening said, “We have to cut through the concrete to rescue them. The fire service is working on it.”
According to reports, the building in which the explosion took place, was located in the busy Siddique Bazaar in Dhaka. It was a commercial building with several offices and stores operating out of it.
Initial information from the scene of the incident in Dhaka mentioned that the blast took place in a store on the ground floor of the five-storey building. The store in which the explosion took place sold sanitation materials.
It may be noted that this is the third in a series of explosions in the week in which casualties were reported after explosions at an oxygen plant in Sitakunda and another in a building on Mirpur Road in Dhaka.
Furthermore, the fire services at the scene of the explosion had to cut short their rescue missions after cracks started to appear in the building where the blast went off. The fire service force will resume the rescue efforts again after the engineers arrive at the spot, reports stated.
Besides that, electricity has also been disconnected in the area around the site of the blast in Dhaka. The Bangladesh Army’s bomb disposal unit rushed to the site of the building blast in Dhaka’s Gulistan, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) mentioned in a release.
