7 killed, 50 injured in Bangladesh shopping mall fire

Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Bashundhara City shopping mall, the largest mall in Bangladesh, burns in Dhaka.
Image: User:Bellayet - Edward Apurba Singha.

Seven people died and 50 others were injured during a fire at Bangladesh's largest shopping mall on Friday.

The dead include six security guards, three of whom were found in an elevator. The seventh was an employee with the mall fire fighting unit who died from injuries in the hospital.

Survivors on the rooftop were rescued by Bangladesh Air Force helicopters. Shoppers fled the mall. The 22 story Basundhara City Complex in Dhaka has more than 2,000 shops and restaurants. It is not known how many were in the mall nor the exact death count. Flames and smoke billowed from the top floors of the mall.

Fifteen fire trucks were dispatched to the fire. Due to high winds and no ladders which would reach the 18th floor, the blazing inferno took between seven to ten hours to extinguish. The fire began in the Basundhara offices on the 18th floor.

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Sources

Farid Hossain. "Bangladesh mall fire kills one" — Associated Press, March 14, 2009
Ruma Paul and Anis Ahmed. "Bangladesh shopping mall fire kills at least seven" — Thomson Reuters, March 14, 2009
"Fire kills 4 at vast Bangladesh shopping mall" — The Associated Press, March 14, 2009
"Bangladesh shopping mall fire kills at least 7" — ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation, March 14, 2009

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Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.