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Korail Slum Fire

Many left homeless, penniless

Akram Hosen and Shaheen Mollah
Holding their little babies, women, mostly garment workers, huddled together in small groups to stay warm. The ground beneath them was wet and the sky was the only thing above in the winter night.
When they left for work in the morning yesterday, each of them had a home, some small savings and valuables. But when they returned in the evening they saw their neighbourhood was reduced to ashes with smoke still swirling from it.
"Everything I had is gone. I only hope my baby doesn't become sick from staying out in the cold," said Mariam, holding her 10 month old wrapped in a towel.
Like her, residents of about 500 shanties - home to about a couple of thousands people - at Korail Boubajar slum were rendered homeless by a fire yesterday afternoon.
About 200 trained locals had helped douse the fire that began around 2:45pm.
Visiting the area around midnight, these correspondents found around 100 of them sitting on the ground beside the narrow waterlogged alleys.
Some 40 rickshaw pullers were sitting on ashes. Most of them had their heads resting on their palms.
“I have lost all my clothes, my savings of Tk 2,500 and my phone, which I had left home. I don't know how I will be able to work after sitting here the entire night," said rickshaw puller Mofijul Islam.
Seeing flames engulfing her neighbourhood and feeling the heat on her face from inside her home, Meena Begum grabbed her two children, aged five and seven, and ran.
Her husband, a vegetables trader,
had kept Tk 10,000 in a wooden cupboard.
"The house was gutted within moments. My husband will become unemployed tomorrow [today] as he will have nothing to buy his goods with," said the woman.
Another woman, Soma Begum, a single mother and domestic help by profession, had left for work leaving behind her three children, the youngest of whom was only six months old.
"I still can't find them," said the woman yesterday evening.
THE FIRE
The fire, believed to have begun from a bedding store around 2:45pm, took almost one and a half hours to douse, said firefighters.
The exact reason for the fire is still unknown, said Masudur Rahman Akand, assistant director of Fire Service and Civil Defence.
About 200 locals, trained in fire fighting, along with 14 fire engines doused the fire, said the fireman.
Due to narrow alleys inside the slum in the capital's Mohakhali area, fire fighters had to leave their trucks about half a kilometre away, said
Masudur.
Most of the destroyed shanties, some multi-storied, were stilt house on the Gulshan Lake. Burnt, they collapsed into the water.
President of Korail Slum Unnayan Committee Abdus Sobahan said most of the residents of the shanties were rickshaw pullers or garment workers and they were not home during the fire.
Several NGO-run schools in the slum had become shelters for some of the affected people. Some moved into their relatives' homes.
Visiting the area, Dhaka North City Corporation Mayor Annisul Huq assured assistance for the affected people.
TRAINING HELPED
Poly Akhter Mukta, a resident of the area, said almost every year there are fires in the slum.
Fire service department conducts monthly fire drills and provides training to 200 volunteers.
“When the fire broke, we started working before the fire fighters arrived. Some of us evacuated the houses while others cleared the alleys for the fire trucks," sheadded.