Over 150 employees were badly burnt in the inferno that engulfed KTS Composite Textile Mill of Arina Group at about 7:10 Thursday evening, when some 600 workers, mostly women, were working inside, sources said.

Of the injured, severely burnt 49 workers were undergoing treatment at Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) yesterday. Their condition is critical and many of them may not live through the injuries, feared CMCH sources.

Ten of the fire victims died on way to hospital and another during treatment at the CMCH at about 3:00am yesterday. Until filing of this report at 7:00pm yesterday, rescue workers had retrieved 43 charred bodies from the ashes.

Witnesses and firemen said the fatal blaze caused by a boiler explosion on the first floor quickly spread and seized the entire building. The ground and first floors of the building were used for garment production, and the second and third for textile.

It was alleged another fire accident took place at the same factory on February 4. But, that day the workers could escape immediately. After that accident, the factory management closed one of the two collapsible gates on each floor.

Some injured workers said when they tried to escape from the flames they found the ground-floor collapsible gate locked.

A Bangladeshi expatriate in the USA, Wahidul Kabir Khosru, reportedly owns the mill in Kalurghat BSCIC Industrial Area of Chandgaon.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia flew in here in the afternoon and visited the accident spot and the injured at the CMCH.

Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) yesterday formed a 7-member committee headed by its First Vice President SM Abu Tayeb to probe into the devastating accident. The committee members launched the investigation by visiting the spot yesterday.

The district administration and the Department of Fire Service and Civil Defence formed two 3-member probe committees into the accident. Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC -General) Mafizul Haq heads the district administration's committee and Fire Service Deputy Director Rashedul Islam Majumder the other.

The government earlier formed another 3-member probe committee headed by a joint-secretary of the commerce ministry. The deputy commissioner and police super of Chittagong are the other two members.

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) yesterday noon arrested the administration and production director of the mill, M Sadat Ullah, 45, son of the late Ahmedul Haq Chowdhury of Charkhine, Patiya, Chittagong. Rab also detained an accountant of Vintage Textile Mill, a sister concern of KTS Textile Mill, named Mohammad Kamrul, 29, son of Abul Kashem Chowdhury of Kamalla, Phulgazi, Feni.

WHEN DISASTER STRIKES
Some 1,200 people worked in two shifts at the textile mill. Around 600 workers were inside the building when the fire broke out, the local city corporation commissioner, Nazim Uddin, told The Daily Star.

He quoted two food vendors, Mohiuddin and Ismail, as saying that on Thursday they had supplied 520 packets of snacks to the factory for evening refreshment, from which the number of people at work during the accident could be easily reckoned.

When the fire broke out at about 20 minutes to the 7:30pm refreshment break, Hannan got trapped on the third floor. "We rushed to the narrow staircase, but many of us blacked out from the obnoxious gas and smoke pervading the stairwell," he told The Daily Star lying on a bed at CMCH Ward 1.

"We then broke a window. We made a long rope by tying up some scarves of the women and hung it from the window. About 20 of us could make it before the rope caught fire," he described with fear still distorting his face.

As the fire originated on the first floor, almost all the workers on the ground floor could come out, said survivors. But those working on the upper floors got trapped inside.

With one of the two gates locked, the workers were forced to rush down a single narrow staircase filled with thick smoke and poisonous gases of burning chemicals. They said only a few could escape down the stairs; most of them made it through the windows.

They broke the windowpanes and the iron grills with the help of local people and workers of the adjacent factories, said Akhter Hossain, who works at the laundry section of the garment unit.

"When the fire erupted, I was working on the second floor. One of the two collapsible gates on the floor was padlocked. Finding it impossible to come out through the milling crowd at the other gate, I jumped out through a window on the roof of a nearby two-storey building," said Farzana, another injured victim being treated at the CMCH.

"Some local people standing on the rooftop of that building broke open the window and helped us out," she said.

After firefighters equipped with over 20 fire tenders from the city's eight fire stations had managed to bring the blaze under control, the army started recovering charred bodies from the factory at 3:00am.

The building has two huge gates in front, besides another in the north used exclusively by the office staffs. There is another narrow and spiral fire escape in the north.

SM Fazlul Haq, former BGMEA first vice-president, said the regulation demands a garment factory to have three gates. At the end of a shift and during any emergency all the gates including the emergency route have to be completely opened.

"The factory had the required number of gates and the escape route. Now, we have to find out if they were kept wide open when the fire broke out," he said. "We have already launched an investigation into it and hope to find what caused so much casualties."

The survivors said both the main gates were closed, with only the small entrances in them open during the accident, while the fire escape was full of smoke and flames, making it hard for them to come out that way.

All the seven guards manning the gates fled without opening the main gates when the fire broke out, said some staffs of a neighbouring factory preferring anonymity. At one stage, the workers with the help of local people broke open both the gates.

Some of firemen also said they found many of the collapsible gates in the passages of the factory floors closed and had to break them open. Six of them fell sick from the poisonous fumes of dying chemicals on fire, said fireman AK Azad.

IDENTIFIED VICTIMS
Twenty of the dead had been identified until last evening. Of them Rasheda Akhter, 17, is daughter of Seku Khan of Panpatti Village under Golachipa Upazila of Patuakhali District, Lutfa Begum, 18, daughter of Delwar Hossain, Sebagram, Ramgati, Laxmipur, Beauty Akhter, 19, daughter of Khaleq Bishwas, Roghunathpur, Bakerganj, Barisal, and Taslima, 14, daughter of Tazul Islam, South Hatiya, Noakhali.

Khadija Akhter, 16, is daughter of Sohrab Sheikh of Jamirtala in Bagerhat, Khuki Akhter, 15, is daughter of Fasi Mia and Sumi Akhter, 17, daughter of Abu Taher of Banskhali, Chittagong. Nazma, 12, Asma, 17, and Yasin, 13, hail from Lohagara Upazila and Tania from Rangunia in Chittagong. Jyotsna, 15, Mita Akhter, Jharna, 20, Rosy, 12, Sharmin and Nipa Akhter came from Bhola, while Al-Amin, Kohinoor, and Khadiza Begum, 17, from Barguna.

All the 54 bodies were taken to the Chittagong General Hospital morgue.

Of the injured, 23 were undergoing treatment at CMCH Ward 27, 18 at Ward 1, and four each at Ward 26 and Ward 16.

Those at Ward 27 include Shamima, 18, Nazma, 28, Abdus Salam, 45, Monir, 24, Moni, 16, Seema Chakma, 22, Kamrun Nahar, 34, M Ismail, 21, Zhumki Das, 40, Kulsum, 40, Rasheda Begum, 28, Hasan, 19, Majeda Begum, 18, Swapna, 20, Champa Das, 18, Farzana, 20, Lovely, 20, Rani, 25, Arzu, 14, Jui, 16, and Suja Uddin, 20.

The injured at Ward 1 include Miraj Uddin, 18, Raju, 23, Surma, 18, Mohsin, 20, Akkana Bhoumik, 20, Delwar Hossain, 18, Rama, 15, Munni, 19, Hasina, 18, Shebhi Barua, 23, Mamata, 18, Al-Amin, 40, Thakurani Dash, 40, Deepa Dhar, 17, Noor Jahan, 30, Nasima Akhter, 28, Priyanka Nath, 20, and one 20-year-old unidentified worker.

The four victims at Ward 26 are Rana Akhter, 18, Rosy Barua, 20, Nurannahar, 20, and another unidentified one. Those at Ward 16 were identified as Rani Nath, 40, Salim, 21, Raju, 20, and Jamal Hossain, 35.

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