Bailey Road fire casualties so high because Building Code not followed: Mayor Taposh
“We found on inspection that despite being a 10-storey building, there is one staircase and that staircase is not wide as per the prescribed standard.”
The fire in the commercial building at Bailey Road killed and injured so many people as the building was not constructed following the Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC), Dhaka South City Corporation Mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh said today (1 March 2024).
He made the comments while speaking to reporters after visiting patients at the Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn & Plastic Surgery and later at the accident site at Bailey Road on Friday afternoon.
The fire at Green Cozy Cottage at Bailey Road, which housed multiple restaurants, clothing stores and gadget shops, killed at least 46 people and severely injured many others.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
He said, "From our preliminary inspection and information, we have come to know that there has been a lot of negligence in the construction of this building. It was constructed in complete violation of the building regulations, the determinants contained in the BNBC code.
"We found on inspection that despite being a 10-storey building, there is one staircase and that staircase is also not wide as per the prescribed standard."
The mayor continued, that according to the building regulations, a building above five storeys must have two staircases with one of them designated for emergency response.
"The emergency staircase is supposed to be used during any kind of natural disasters, including fire, landslides. But as this building was not constructed following these rules, there were so many casualties in the fire."
Taposh said the Dhaka South City Corporation sent building construction and reconstruction regulations to the arthritis concerned.
He hoped to get speedy approval of the regulations.
"To avoid such massive loss of life and damage, the full implementation and enforcement of the building construction regulations is absolutely necessary. In light of the disasters that have occurred in the past years, the Dhaka South City Corporation is preparing a draft policy for emergency response to deal with such disasters.
"Moreover, we have sent a policy to the government making it mandatory to take permission from the city corporation for construction and reconstruction of buildings. Discussions are going on with various authorities about it. We hope the government will soon approve this policy," he added.
