FM MIZANUR RAHAMAN and MINTU DESHWARA

“The last time I talked to my son was around 2:00pm on Saturday,” said Hasina Begum.

Hasina’s son, Oliur Rahman Nayan, was a 20-year-old working at Sitakunda BM Depot. Nayan was the first to inform the entire country about the fire at the depot, followed by the deadly explosion, through a Facebook live.

Minutes after he went live on Facebook, streaming the fire at the depot, the explosion took his life.

“We were inside the depot when the fire broke out around 9:00pm. We were thinking about our course of action. Around after 17 minutes, Nayan went live on Facebook to spread the word,” said Ariful Islam, who works at the depot as a covered-van driver, and is a close friend of Nayan’s.

“When we saw the severity of the fire, we asked Nayan to come out of the depot with us. But he continued with the live.”

“After about 40 minutes, we heard a deafening noise, and everything went dark in the live stream. We tried calling him [Nayan] but found his phone switched off,” Ariful said.

Ariful and his coworkers tried to enter the depot after the explosion but failed due to the heavy smoke and blazing fire. After a few hours, they went to CMCH to search for Nayan.

They finally found Nayan around noon yesterday. But it was all too late. Nayan had already perished in the explosion, said Ariful while sharing about the loss of his friend.

Nayan hailed from Fatiguli village of Moulvibazar’s Kulaura upazila and was the eldest among six siblings. He had started working in the depot only four months ago to help his poverty-afflicted family.

“Our entire family depends on Nayan’s income. Now my son is gone forever,” said Hasina Begum.