STAR REPORT

A prominent feature of Banani Road-11, Kamal Ataturk Avenue, Satmasjid Road, Khilagon Taltola, and Mirpur-11 is that tall buildings there house restaurants, cafes and commercial kitchens, just like the buildings on Bailey Road.

These “restaurant buildings” make these places the buzzing hotspots they are.

As the Bailey Road fire has shown, a blatant disregard for safety is just as prominent as the buildings themselves.

The Daily Star visited 37 of these “restaurant buildings” that housed over 100 restaurants and found 22 buildings with safety lapses that could potentially lead to casualties in case of a fire.

This paper’s correspondents looked at whether there was any fire exits, whether the stairwell was protected by a fire-rated door, and whether the stairway was being used as storage.

“Since these buildings are mixed-use buildings, they must have a separate fire exit,” said Prof Adil Muhammed Khan, head of the Institute of Planning and Development.

“Our current laws do not mention restaurants as a category of occupancy. This is a loophole. We recommend that the next amendment to the building construction rules plug this,” he said.

DHANMONDI

On Satmasjid Road, The Daily Star correspondents visited 21 “restaurant buildings” and found safety issues at eight.

An 11-storey building on one end of the road with at least eight restaurants was found to be storing LPG cylinders on both the main stairwells and the emergency exit.

Large 45 kg gas cylinders were seen at the unmarked emergency exit on three floors and two large cylinders at the main stairwell on the sixth floor.

The staircases were being used to store large boxes, thereby obstructing egress during an emergency.

An eight-storey “restaurant building” next to this building had no emergency exits, and neither did a six-storey building housing a jam-packed burger joint.

A seven-storey and six-storey building had no emergency exit.

At a popular 14-storey restaurant hub, the emergency stairway on the 8th and 10th floors was blocked by large boxes.

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