BM Depot: The house of broken, disregard rules
Five investigation committees said the depot flouted all rules on their first day of probe
A sheer disregard of the rules and regulations.
This is what the five committees formed to investigate the BM Depot fire in Chattogram's Sitakunda which broke out on Saturday night found on Wednesday, the first day of their probe.
Their initial assessment of the industrial accident, which led to 45 deaths, confirms what many had been saying: it was a case of refusing to play the rules.
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Mofidul Alam, director of the Chittagong region of the environment department and also a member of the inquiry committee headed by the additional divisional commissioner, said, "The BM container depot had taken clearance to keep garments and poultry feed. They did not mention keeping chemicals in their application. Now we are investigating what chemicals were kept in the depot."
Tofazzal Hossain, a member of the same investigation committee and an inspector at the explosives department in Chattogram, told The Business Standard, "Special kind of infrastructure is required for storage of chemicals. But the depot did not have that arrangement. We also got information of the depot storing hydrogen peroxide reserves which will be mentioned in our report."
Shafiuddin, additional commissioner of Chattogram customs and head of its investigation committee said, "Private inland container depots [ICDs] are customs bonded areas. Following the policy, ICDs have to be operated with the licence of the National Board of Revenue [NBR]. The inquiry committee is examining whether these policies were implemented in the case of BM Depot."
Anisur Rahman, deputy director of the Fire Service and Civil Defence of Chattogram and also member secretary of its committee said the depot had no permission to store chemicals.
The five probe committees included ones formed by the port authorities and the district administration.
Meanwhile, the authorities of BM Depot have also formed an investigation committee of their own.
The fire at BM Depot also left more than 200 injured. The army announced it had tamed the blaze on Tuesday afternoon, more than 61 hours after it began.
