A fire broke out on Thursday afternoon for the company Sajeeb Group owned six-storey factory. Firefighters only managed to put out the flames after 20 hours, firefighter Abdullah Als Arefin said on Friday.
Arefin said the bodies of 49 workers were found on the fourth floor of the factory. Three workers were found dead as early as Thursday, bringing the death toll to 52. Arefin said that the fifth and sixth floors of the factory will also be searched.
The plant, located almost 25 kilometers east of Dhaka, produced juices, soft drinks and other food products.
Rescue services managed to rescue at least 25 workers who managed to get to the roof of the building after the fire broke out. But the fourth floor was closed and people could not get out of it.
Survivors told the media that the gates were closed for security reasons and guards refused to open them without the owner’s permission.
“We could have rescued them if they had reached the roof,” Arefin said, adding that the flames engulfed the entire building, preventing rescue workers from entering it during the first hours of the fire.
A police spokesman found that many workers had managed to escape on their own.
Several survivors told the media that they had managed to break into one of the other locked gates immediately after they noticed the fire. They said the factory employed about 1,000 people at the time of the fire.
Arefin said the fire was exacerbated by flammable materials in the factory, such as plastic bottles, oil, paper, resin and foil.
The cause of the fire has not yet been determined and is being investigated.
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