AT least 34 people have been killed and 300 injured after containers packed with chemicals exploded at a storage depot in Bangladesh.
Hundreds of people had raced to the site in Sitakundato at around midnight on Saturday to help tackle the fire when a massive blast ripped through the depot.
The death toll from the explosion hit 34 on Sunday – and is expected to rise, the chief regional doctor said.
"The death toll from the fire has risen to 34," Elias Chowdhury, chief doctor of the Chittagong region in southern Bangladesh, said.
"More than 300 people are injured."
At least five firefighters are among the dead, according to Main Uddin, the director general of the Bangladesh fire service and civil defense.
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And the injured include at least 40 firefighters and 10 police officers.
Many of the wounded are reported to be in critical condition – with burns covering 60 per cent to 90 per cent of their bodies.
There were multiple explosions after the initial blast as the fire rapidly spread across the depot, Uddin said.
Explosives experts from Bangladesh's military have now been called in to assist the firefighters.
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Mominur Rahman, chief administrator of Chittagong district, said the government has deployed some 200 army troops to stop the chemicals flowing into the sea.
The massive explosions shattered the windows of nearby buildings – and were felt as far as two miles away, local media reports said.
Mohammad Ali, 60, who has a nearby grocery store, said: "A cylinder flew around half a kilometre from the fire spot to our small pond when the explosion occurred.
"The explosion sent fireballs in the sky. Fireballs were falling like rain. We were so afraid we immediately left our home to find refuge.
"We thought the fire would spread to our locality as it is very densely populated."
Eyewitnesses said that the blast engulfed people who had been battling the fire.
Lorry driver Tofael Ahmed said: "I was standing inside the depot.
"The explosion just threw me some 10 metres from where I was standing. My hands and legs are burnt."
The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.
Hospitals in the area are now overwhelmed and many are pleading for blood donations.
Many of the containers in the depot are thought to have held chemicals.
The depot handles goods for export and import and is located about 12 miles from the country's main Chittagong Seaport.
Bangladesh has a history of industrial disasters, including factories catching fire with workers trapped inside.
Monitoring groups have blamed corruption and lax enforcement for deadly incidents over the years.
In 2012, 117 workers died when they were trapped behind locked exits in a garment factory in Dhaka.
The country's worst industrial disaster occurred in 2013, when the Rana Plaza garment factory outside Dhaka collapsed – killing more than 1,100 people.
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In 2019, a blaze ripped through a 400-year-old area cramped with apartments, shops and warehouses in the oldest part of Dhaka and killed at least 67 people.
Another fire in Old Dhaka in a house illegally storing chemicals killed at least 123 people in 2010.
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