'Nothing left': Bangladesh slum inferno leaves thousands homeless

By Md. Kamruzzaman

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – Aasiya Begum, 60, sifts through the still smoldering remains of what, till last night, was the place she called home.

Hundreds more around her also search desperately through heaps of charred wood and ash, trying to find anything of value that may have survived the blazing inferno that ravaged Sat Tola Basti, a sprawling slum in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, in the early hours of Monday.

“I was lucky to be able to save my mother. She is around 90 years old and can hardly move; a neighbor helped me get her out of the house before it was swallowed by the fire,” Begum, a mother of four, told Anadolu Agency.

“This [fire] has happened many times before too. I have nothing left but the clothes on my back.”

Like Begum, Monday night’s devastating blaze has rendered thousands of other low-income earners, mostly rickshaw pullers, daily wage laborers, and small business owners, homeless and destitute.

According to the victims and the preliminary assessment of the Fire Service and Civil Defense, around 1,000 shanties and over 100 shops were gutted as a raging fire swept through the settlement at around 4 a.m. local time (2200GMT).

So far, there have been no casualties reported in the inferno, which was put out after a nearly three-hour operation involving 18 fire tenders and dozens of firefighters.

“There were thousands of tents and huts in this cramped space. That is why the fire spread and grew rapidly,” an officer of the fire department told Anadolu Agency.

“We are still going through the rubble. At this point, we cannot be certain about any casualties or the extent of the financial losses.”

- Sinister intentions

Officials are yet to determine the cause of the fire, but the residents believe it may not be as innocuous as authorities are likely to suggest.

Property developers and government officials have been known to view slums such as Sat Tola Basti as eyesores that mushroom on prized land and drag down the value of real estate in surrounding areas.

Forced eviction and destruction of their homes is a threat that residents of these impoverished settlements have to contend with all through Bangladesh.

They know all too well that such fires and other seemingly genuine accidents have been repeatedly used to clear out slums to claim the coveted land.

Just last November, a massive blaze ripped through Sat Tola Basti, gutting at least 300 shanties and shops, leaving hundreds penniless and without shelter.

A similar unexplained fire destroyed 100 shanties in the settlement in December 2016, while a number of people were injured and over 130 shanties gutted in two more blazes in May 2015 and October 2012.

“Why have there been so many fires here? If there are powerful people eyeing this land for high-rises or other commercial purposes, they should just come out and talk to us. We will leave this place if they give us due compensation,” said a resident, who preferred not to disclose identity.

According to official data, there were at least 174 fires in various slums across Bangladesh in 2019, while 31 such incidents were recorded in slums in Dhaka in 2020.

- ‘Government must help us’

Nur Hossain’s house and small tea shop in Sat Tola Basti were gutted in Monday’s blaze.

“I had just bought a big television for the shop to attract more customers. It’s all gone. I have nothing now; no money and no shelter,” he told Anadolu Agency.

Hossain, 55, is not the only one counting his losses as, according to initial estimates, some 100 small stores and businesses were destroyed in the blaze.

“We are all worried about the future. We have suffered huge losses. The government must help us,” he said.

His call for assistance was echoed by many others who narrated similar ordeals and urged authorities to immediately arrange monetary compensation for them.

“We are working people. We are used to hard work and can cope with life’s troubles. With just a little help from the government, we are hopeful that we can rebuild our lives and rise from these ashes,” said Mohammed Sabir Hossain, a student of a polytechnic institute in Dhaka who lives in Sat Tola Basti with his parents.