Building cracks slow search for victims of Bangladesh factory fire

The fire at a food and cigarettepackaging factory in Bangladesh that killed at least 26 peoplehas been extinguished, but heavy smoke and the risk of thebuilding collapsing further were hampering the search of thepremises, officials said on Sunday.

Saturday's blaze was the country's worst industrial accidentsince theRanaPlaza building collapse of 2013 that killed 1,135garment sector workers, and raises further questions aboutBangladesh's safety record.

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"The building is hot and it is not possible to enter," saidAjit Kumar Bhoumik, a senior official with the fire department,early on Sunday. "Also there are huge cracks in the building, soit is very risky to enter without precautionary measures."

He said that the death toll from the blaze had risen to 26.Some fear it could increase further once search efforts begin.

The cause of the fire in the Tongi industrial zone about 20 kilometresnorth of the capital, Dhaka, was not immediatelyknown, but officials said a boiler explosion probably triggeredit. The blaze broke out as workers prepared to swap shifts inthe early hours of Saturday morning.

Mikail Shipar, government secretary with the ministry oflabour and employment, told Reuters the government was now goingto investigate safety at all of the hundreds of factories in the
Tongi industrial zone.

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"We checked the design of this factory and initially it isour understanding that it was a one floor building and later thefloor had been raised, similar to case of Rana Plaza," he said.

Shipar added that an investigation would be carried out andif anyone was found guilty of negligence, action would be taken.

"I have already been asked to formulate a project to inspectall the factories in all four industrial zones in the country,"he said. The location of the boiler in the building was alsobeing scrutinized.

The fire is the latest in a series of industrial accidentsin the South Asian country, which is the world's second biggestgarment exporter behind China.

The Rana Plaza disaster sparked demands for greater safetyin the country and put the onus on foreign companies sourcingclothing from Bangladesh to act. The disaster led to thecreation of two international coalitions designed to help fundimprovements to building and fire safety at thousands of garmentfactories across Bangladesh.

One official on Saturday said that the government's focus sofar had been mainly on garment factories, and less so on otherindustries, but that was now likely to change.

The blaze at Tampaco Foils caused the partial collapse ofthe factory building, which packages various items, includingfood and cigarettes, for several local companies and globalbrands such as British American Tobacco and Nestle