| Dhaka, Jun 4 — Bangladesh will hold national mourning on Saturday for those who died in the Old Dhaka fire on Thursday night. Prime minister Sheikh Hasina made the announcement when she went to visit the hundreds of fire victims undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital's burns unit on Friday. Flags will be flown at half-staff and special prayers held at mosques and other places of worships across the country. The prime minister visited the hospital cancelling all her pre-scheduled programmes at about 11am and stayed there for half an hour, Hasina's deputy press secretary Mahbubul Haque Shakil said. He said she also declared that the government will bear treatment expenses of the injured. She ordered the those who cannot be trated at DMH be sent to Combined mIlitary Hospital. The prime minister spend a sleepless night, making inquiry about the rescue operations, where the injured were being taken and where the dead would be buried, Shakil said. She had earlier condoled the deaths and sympathised with the survivors who lost loved ones. As the DMCH burns unit does not have sufficient facilities for the large number of critical burn victims, Hasina ordered that some of the injured be sent to the Combined Military Hospital if required, Shakil said. Home minister Sahara Khatun, LGRD state minister Jahangir Kabir Nanak, disaster management minister Abdur Razzaque and Awami League joint general secretary Mahbub Ul-Huq Hanif also visited the DMCH burns unit early on Friday. Razzaque had told the reporters that the prime minister has declared Tk 20,000 as compensation for each of the victims' families. Jatiya Party chairman HM Ershad, along with other leaders of his party, also visited the injured at the hospital shortly after Hasina left. Ershad demanded ample compensation for the victims and grieved for those who have died Opposition leader Khaleda Zia had visited the hospital early on Friday morning, mourned the dead and checked on the treatment of the wounded and demanded compensation for the families of the deceased. The death toll from Thusday night's roaring blaze at Old Dhaka's Nimtali has risen to 97 as firefighters recovered six more burnt bodies. At 5am on Friday, the fire fighters decided to end their operation after an eight-hour battle with the blaze with the death toll then at 88, of which 87 people had died in the fire itself and another person at hospital. However, as daylight came, the fire fighters were again called back to work as more bodies were discovered. Brig Gen Abu Nayeem Mohammed Shahidullah, the fire service director general, told reporters that six bodies were recovered from 7am to 11:45am from some sewerage tunnels adjacent to the fire-hit buildings. Meanwhile, another three victims who sustained critical burn injuries died at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Samanta Lal Sen, director of the DMCH burns unit, told bdnews24.com. As of 2pm on Friday, this had brought the death toll to 97. It is feared that the death toll will rise to more than 100 as many other people have sustained grave burn injuries, with over 100 being treated at different hospitals. The fire broke out on Thursday night at about 9pm after the electrical transformer at Nawab Katra in Nimtali in Dhaka City Corporation's ward 69 burst into flames that raced through several apartment complexes, feeding on flammable chemicals and plastic goods in a string of small shops lining the street beneath, fire officials said. Several buildings including a plastic factory at Kayettuli in Agamasi Lane caught fire. Locals said the firefighters were late to arrive at the scene and that there was acute water crisis, factors that prevented the blaze from being doused. Regards, SuMoN |
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