The perpetual threat of infernos in Old Dhaka

Riya and Rifat had been married for two years. They were expecting their first child in 2019. They lived on the third floor of Wahed Mansion in Old Dhaka's Chawkbazar, and things were going normally for them. Then struck a fiery tragedy on the fateful night of February 20, 2019, which engulfed 71 lives, including that of Riya, Rifat and their unborn child. Due to pregnancy-related complications, Riya could not move to escape the building, and Rifat could not leave his wife and unborn child behind to save himself.  

This tragedy could have been avoided, had the authorities taken measures to shutter warehouses containing hazardous chemicals from Old Dhaka, as they had committed to do after the June 2010 Nimtoli fire incident, which had claimed 124 lives.

The fire at Chawkbazar, according to an investigation by Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB), originated from the chemicals stored at a warehouse in the infamous Wahed Mansion. High-pressure canisters of deodorant were kept in the warehouses of the building along with other flammable materials. The probe also found that a significant quantity of combustible materials had been stored in the basement of the building.   

Nine years earlier, the fire at Nimtoli—caused by a transformer burst—also turned into an inferno because of the flammable materials and products stored in the various warehouses in that area. 

According to the Bangladesh Environment Conservation Rules 1997, industrial units dealing with hazardous chemicals or goods cannot operate in or around residential areas. However, the reality in Old Dhaka is quite the opposite.

A Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) study earlier revealed that at least 1,525 chemical warehouses and factories, along with 600 colour warehouses and factories are in operation in Old Dhaka, which has made the area extremely vulnerable to fire hazards. Reportedly, 15,000 of the 25,000 chemical warehouses in Old Dhaka are in residential buildings.

The BSCIC's promise of relocating the chemical warehouses, post the Nimtoli fire, is yet to be realised. Work for the BSCIC Chemical Industrial Park is still underway, and unsurprisingly, the project deadline has been extended by one more year to 2023, from June 2022. 

And even in this there is a catch: the actual relocation would not take place until 2025, even if BSCIC manages to hand over the plots to the factory and warehouse owners by June 2023. The additional time would be required for constructing buildings and completing ancillary work. 

Meanwhile, the vulnerability of the area is manifested in the fire incidents that take place every year. In April 2021, a fire in a chemical warehouse in Haji Musa Mansion in Armanitola claimed the lives of four. Another five individuals perished in a fire incident at an illegal shoe sole factory in Swarighat in November 2021. In December 2021, fire ravaged a shoe warehouse in Shuritola. It took seven firefighting units to bring the situation under control.

What is even more alarming is that, despite the deadly fire in Wahed Mansion, the building owners have now rented out the basement parking lot to a plastic toy factory. Carbon-based plastics are highly flammable and plastic warehouses and factories are major enablers of fire spreads. The four fire extinguishers currently placed in the parking lot will not be of much use during a fire incident, given that the basement does not have a fire exit. This reckless act by the building owners reflects their gross disrespect for the laws and the lives that have been lost due to their sheer greed.

In view of this dismal situation, what are the authorities doing to prevent fire incidents from occurring frequently in Old Dhaka? How come the owners of Wahed Mansion are able to rent out the building's basement to another factory, at a time when they are facing charges of negligence from law enforcers? What are the supervision mechanisms and protocols of concerned authorities for ensuring the fire safety measures in these buildings? How many lives would need to become ash before the authorities wake up and take concrete actions to make Old Dhaka safer for its inhabitants?

It is high time the government revisited the BSCIC project and took immediate measures to expedite it so that the hazardous factories can be relocated at the earliest. As long as these flammable establishments are housed in the narrow alleys of Old Dhaka, the residents will live in a perpetual state of fear, dreading the next inferno to unleash. We cannot allow that to happen.

Tasneem Tayeb is a columnist for The Daily Star. Her Twitter handle is @tasneem_tayeb