Woman killed in fire in multi-storey Dhaka building, internet services affected

Dhaka, Oct 27

A woman was killed and nine others injured as a fire broke out on the second-highest floor on the 14-storey Khawaja Tower in Dhaka's Mohakhali area on Thursday evening.

Members of the armed forces have also joined the fire-fighting operation.

Some 20-25 people are feared to be trapped inside the building. Many people were seen coming down from the high-rise with the help of ropes, while others were seen breaking windows to escape.

Eleven units of fire service have been working to douse the blaze since 5.07 p.m., Fire Service and Civil Defence Media Wing Officer Shahjahan Shikder said. At least nine injured people were rescued from the building, he said, adding that they were still not sure as to how many people are inside.

The deceased has been identified as Hasnahena, an employee at internet service provider Orbit. Banani police station Officer-in-Charge Mostafizur Rahman told IANS that she died while trying to escape from the building using a cable.

Meanwhile, Akalima Rahman, who worked at Race Online Ltd on the ninth floor, has not been traced in connection, as per her sisters.

Meanwhile, internet services were disrupted in different parts of the country as two data centres, which were in the building, were shut due to the blaze.

Internet Service Provider Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB) P:resident Emdadul Haque said that the bandwidth of several leading internet service providers comes from two data centres based in Khawaja Tower and their closure has been causing disruption in services.

Mobile operator Robi in a statement said some customers might face problems in incoming and outgoing calls due to technical issues emanating from the fire. The operator is trying to fix the problem as soon as possible, it said.