Fire broke out in Dhaka’s Mirpur district on Friday, destroying almost 2,000 tin shacks, officials say

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

At least 10,000 people are homeless after a massive fire swept through a crowded slum in the Bangladesh capital and destroyed thousands of shanty homes, officials said on Sunday.

The fire broke out at in Dhaka’s Mirpur neighbourhood late on Friday and razed around 2,000 mostly tin shacks, fire services official Ershad Hossain said.

“I could not salvage a single thing. I don’t know what will I do,” 58-year-old Abdul Hamid, who ran a tea stall inside the slum said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Bangladeshi man tries to extinguish flames as a fire ravages a slum in Dhaka. Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images

Authorities eventually got the blaze under control and no-one was killed, although several people had minor injuries, firefighters said.

'The builders don't care': Dhaka reels from another deadly blaze Read more

Many residents – largely low-income garment factory workers – were not in the slum as they had left their homes to celebrate the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday with their families.

“Otherwise, the damage would have been bigger,” local police chief Golam Rabbani said.

Around 10,000 people have taken refuge in crammed camps at nearby schools closed for the weeklong holiday, according to Hossain.

“We are providing them with food, water, mobile toilets, and electricity supply,” municipal official Shafiul Azam said, adding that authorities were trying to find permanent accommodation.

Some families have erected tarpaulins to shelter them from bouts of rain during the monsoon season, but the wet conditions have turned the fields muddy.

Experts say fires are frequent in Dhaka due to lax safety measures.

At least 100 people have been killed so far this year in building fires across the densely populated metropolitan city.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest People survey the wreckage after a shanty town fire in Dhaka. Photograph: Sultan Mahmud Mukut/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

In March police in Dhaka arrested two of the owners of a commercial complex that caught fire last week, killing 26 people and injuring about 70.