The New Nation - Internet Edition

Chittagong Correspondent

A girl died and several others suffered wounds in a fire that broke out at the cluster of thatched houses of Amin Jute Mill workers and employees in the city slightly after zero hour yesterday.

The fire also damaged dozens of shops and dwellings nearby. Neither the firefighters nor the local inhabitants could tell for sure the number of structures destroyed in the fire. A source of the Fire Brigade and Civil Defense, however, claimed that 294 semi-concrete dwellings, 19 grocery shops and two local offices of private voluntary development organizations (PVDO) were gutted completely in the fire.

Police quoting the neighborhoods identified the victim as Shahnaj Begum (12). She was a daughter of Mohammad Ali, a worker of the public jute mill. Firefighters believed that the fire might have originated from electric short circuit at a shop shortly after the midnight. It turned ferocious and spread over the adjoining shops and dwellings quickly.

Shahnaj who had been sleeping during the incident got trapped in the huge blaze and died instantly. Firefighters later recovered her roasted body and sent it to Chittagong Medical College Hospital morgue for autopsy.

Nearly a dozen fire engines from all nearby fire stations backed by locals carried out joint dampening operation and finally became successful in dousing it in the morning. "We packed up rescue operation at about 6:15 a.m.," a rescuer said. Officials though claimed the extent of damage above a million, affected people estimated the damage over five million.

Though a process had been in progress for framing a probe body to look into the incident, none of the sources confirmed it till the time of dispatching this report at 6:00 p.m. today.

Another incident of fire reportedly destroyed half a dozen semi-concrete dwellings at Maispara under Patenga police station early today.

Sources said the fire originated from a clay stove and engulfed the adjacent dwellings. Later, firefighters doused the flame at about 7:30 a.m.