Bangladeshis observed a day of national mourning on Saturday to remember the 117 people who died in Thursday’s blaze in Dhaka’s old town.
With the national flag flying at half mast, Bangladeshis of all stripes and beliefs joined in prayer and commemoration, unified in quiet and mannered grief.
Now is the time for searching and healing. Loved one’s lost and defaced; family placed under one’s feet; contracts and promises despoiled, now necessarily renewed for the days and journeys ahead.
Many of the victims of the fire were reported to have been celebrating a wedding on rooftop of one of the buildings that went up in flames. Some devilish injustice now prevails over this moment. It is thought that the seemingly unstoppable blaze started when an electrical transformer exploded. A chemical factory, thought illegal, is being blamed for helping cause what might have been a small fire, to quickly spread out of hand, out of control.
Now the survivors have to deal with the catastrophe to come. Medical supplies and hospital beds are too short in supply to attend to the more than a hundred surviving victims of the fire who’ve been fortunate to find treatment. And then, there exists the prospect that after multiple surgeries, many victims have not be able to revert to their recently passed lives.
The Daily Stars reportage paints a very sobering picture:
“Some of the survivors got their vital organs damaged in the devastating blaze that engulfed eight residential buildings and shops in Nimtoli on Thursday night, killing 117 people.”
“It would take six to one year for the victims to get back to their normal life,” said Dr Samantalal Sen, project director of the Burn and Plastic Surgery unit at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.”
