At least 109 factory workers were killed and many others injured in a fire at a garment factory near Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, civil defence officials said Sunday. The authorities called off rescue operations some 17 hours after the fire broke out. Officials had earlier estimated the death toll at 115, dpa reported. The factory workers, most of them women, were trapped inside when the building caught fire on Saturday evening, said Mahbubur Rahman of the Fire Service and Civil Defence department. The fire broke out on the ground floor of the nine-storey Tazreen Fashion factory, located some 20 kilometres north-west of Dhaka, and quickly engulfed the upper floors, where more than 1,000 workers were on duty. One of the survivors, now undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said the fire had originated from the factory's main electric switch. The head of the Fire Service and Civil Defence department, Abu Naim Shahidullah, said the factory building had four emergency staircases, but only a handful of workers used them, with the rest heading for the main gate instead. Police officer Habibur Rahman said the death toll could well rise, as it was not yet clear how many workers had survived. More than 200 workers who sustained burn injuries were rushed to hospitals.
