According to a report published in this paper on February 24, an industries ministry probe committee has claimed that it found no evidence of a chemical factory or warehouse in the vicinity of the Chawkbazar fire.

Amidst a hail of flaming cans and other flammable objects, courageous locals emerged as first responders to Wednesday's devastating fire which engulfed the four-storey Haji Wahed Mansion in Chawkbazar's Churihatta.

Four separate writ petitions were filed with the High Court yesterday in connection with the Chawkbazar fire, with different prayers including compensation for the victim families and punishment for those responsible for the incident.

After coming to Dhaka from Noakhali when he was only 10 years old, Abdul Mannan engaged himself in many an odd job -- from working at restaurants to construction sites -- to save money for himself. He was able to save Tk 10 lakhs, with which he opened up a stationary shop 16 years ago.

After an inferno had claimed 124 lives in Old Dhaka's Nimtoli in 2010, the government took up four projects to relocate four types of industries -- chemical, plastic, printing and light electronics -- from this part of the capital.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has requested the parents or children of those still missing following the Chawkbazar fire to provide their DNA samples to swiftly identify the unknown bodies.

Chemicals are being shifted from Haji Wahed Mansion in Churihatta of Dhaka’s Chawkbazar for the second consecutive day.

The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has expressed his condolences to the president, the government and the people Bangladesh for the loss of lives and destructions in the Chawkbazar inferno.

Their family was a happy one -- mother and father with their two healthy children. On Wednesday night, the brutal fire that blazed through Chawkbazar reduced their perfect family of four to just one, while the rest looked on from behind a photo frame that managed to survive the hellish flames.

As the call for relocating the warehouses of chemicals and inflammable goods from Old Dhaka gets louder, an industries ministry probe committee claimed that there was no chemical factory or warehouse at the scene of Wednesday's devastating fire in Chawkbazar.

The grief for the loss of at least 67 lives in the chemical-fuelled Chawkbazar blaze is giving way to the fury against chemical factories and warehouses in Old Dhaka with the demand for their removal from the area getting louder.

Fire tragedies are frequent in Bangladesh and often cause high casualties, but no one has ever been punished for their role in any fire incidents.

The devastating fire in Chawkbazar is the outcome of a collective failure of the authorities concerned.

With dazed eyes on a blank face, five-year-old Sanin lay nestled in the arms of her father Suman, who was standing just yards off the Dhaka Medical College morgue yesterday.

The old town blaze that claimed at least 67 lives could have been even more devastating had the flames came into contact with the huge stockpile of chemicals in the basement of Haji Wahed Mansion.

A pall of gloom has descended on many villages of Noakhali as 13 of the 67 victims in Chawkbazar fire already identified hailed from the district.

Multiple accounts of what caused Wednesday's fire at Chawkbazar have been put forth by different quarters.

Condolences poured in to the bereaved families of those killed in the deadly blaze at Old Dhaka's Chawkbazar on Wednesday night.

Old Dhaka will remain vulnerable to disasters like the ones in Nimtoli and Chawkbazar unless it undergoes redevelopment, say urban planners.

The government is yet to respond to the High Court rule and directives over the Nimtoli fire in Old Dhaka that killed 124 people and injured many others on June 3, 2010, said the lawyer who filed a writ petition in this regard.