'What should we do now?'

Fire service officials paused the rescue operation around 5:30pm after the blast-ravaged building in Gulistan's Siddik Bazar was declared "highly risky".

But worried relatives of a missing person, Mehedi Hasan Swapan, manager of Bangladesh Sanitary, is still looking for him at the site.

"What should we do now? They recovered two bodies and then stopped the rescue operation. We didn't find my brother-in-law [Swapan] yet," Abu Taher, a brother-in-law of Swapan, told reporters at the spot.

Taher said they looked for Swapan at hospitals but didn't find him. The shop where Swapan worked was located at the ground floor of the building. They believe Swapan's body might be found here.

Aktaruzzaman, deputy director of Fire Service, said the building has been declared "highly risky" by the Rajuk and DSCC. "There was no light inside the basement and the whole site was covered with earth. We managed to recover those bodies in two hours of effort," he added.

"We were informed about a missing person. So we'll cross-check the information and then take measures."