Chaos, death and grief: The day after the Bailey Road fire
After the capital’s latest deadly fire, which left over 45 people dead, the family of the deceased and survivors spoke of grief and loss
In a small circle of journalists at Dhaka Medical College Hospital emergency unit premises, one cried out, "Abhishruti is no more." The group's expression changed in the blink of an eye, and grief set in.
"We covered the election together. Such a sweet girl she was! She didn't even have her voter ID yet. I was supposed to go with her to get it soon," lamented Sadia Afroz, a fellow journalist.
Abhishruti was at Bailey Road's Green Cozy Cottage on Thursday night to celebrate her new job. TheReport.live journalist was due to join Barta24. But tragedy struck.
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Around 12:30 pm on Friday, 25-year-old Abhishruti Shashtri became one of the 46 people who lost their lives to the Bailey Road fire – one of the deadliest in the capital's recent history.
Beyond these mere statistics, we searched for stories.
The day after
Chaos – one word to define the situation at the entrance of the old burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Friday morning.
The Dhaka District Commissioner's office had an information booth at the opposite side of the entrance. Scouts and volunteers scurried to compile information about the deceased ones, as well as the injured.
At the emergency gate, individuals were seen screaming. Their grief was palpable, others were holding them up.
Inside the emergency unit, it did not take long to find sufferers because the incident took over the entire DMCH.
A man was sitting on a chair while two others were holding him. He was crying out and trembling. It was 26-year-old K M Minhaz Uddin Khan's father. Minhaz recently graduated and got a job. But his career and life met a tragic end.
Perhaps more heart-wrenching was the sight of individuals running to the police and then to the morgue – showing photographs of their loved ones and asking if they had been identified.
DNA tests were necessary to identify many of the bodies – burned and damaged beyond recognition.
One such individual was 20-year-old Shagor Hossain - a security guard at a clothing store at the Green Cozy Cottage building. Shagor's paternal uncle and a few others had already arrived at DMCH from Pabna by then. They rushed after hearing the news.
His father had to be left in Pabna because he fell sick.
One of Shagor's relatives quietly sighed, "He came to Dhaka only a few years ago for a better living." Had Shagor known how merciless this city was, would he have trodden a different path?
Fahima Begum [pseudonym] was standing by the morgue. She was an attendant for a tonsillitis patient on the second floor. But, out of curiosity, when she heard the ruckus downstairs, she came down to see.
"Tar black, my dear lord, tar black - how many of these I have seen taken to the morgue since last night [Thursday]!" she recounted, her expression was a mix of shock and grief.
"Burnt smell of flesh, and disturbing forms of bodies were being taken there - many of the deceased I mean."
Then she described a child who was also a victim - it did not burn but potentially died due to "toxic gas and smoke" [carbon monoxide]. Among the dead, as of this writing, remain three children.
The survivors
Amid the harrowing incident, there were glimpses of hope: the stories of the survivors.
As we moved to the newly built Sheikh Hasina Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery, we found a quiet environment. On the fifth and seventh floors, approximately 11 injured individuals were receiving treatment. Their relatives were either bustling with documents or praying, silently.
Dr Pradip Chandra Das, head of a unit in the Plastic Surgery division, said, "They are now in better condition compared to when they were admitted. However, we can't say they are fully out of danger. The required recovery time will vary from one individual to another."
Delivery person Faridul Islam is a survivor. Luckily, his injuries were mild; he had bruises, and the lungs would take some time to be cleared, he informed. "I was there to take delivery from Khana's restaurant."
The fire spread really quickly, and due to the smoke and heat of the fire, it was almost impossible to go downstairs. So Faridul rushed to the rooftop.
"I was rescued after the fire had been extinguished," he said, adding, "People who hurled themselves to the rooftops were the luckiest because that was the only way to survive."
Another survivor, Anan, a higher secondary graduate attending the university admissions this year, had injured hands and legs. "I went up to the sixth floor and found an opening between the stairs and the wall. Satellite cables were going down to the ground and I hung onto that.
I could descend to the second floor, by then my hands were bleeding, and the flesh was exposed, and then fell from there on the ground."
His voice was weak, timid and upset from what he had experienced. "There were horror scenes, people hurrying through the smoke with children underneath their feet. Many are dead. I was a lucky one, but could have been dead too."
As he spoke, his sister held him. He could barely walk. "Who would be held responsible?" His voice may have been dim but he was asking questions with conviction.
"The building owner, the builders - there were hundreds of people in that building. Will the ones responsible be held accountable?"
