"Why did Abbu rush to the depot?"

Khaledul Islam was taking dinner after offering Esha prayers. He received a phone call and someone informed him that the container depot had caught fire. Khaledul immediately hopped into his car and reached to depot. Relatives later found him in hospital with severe burn injuries.

Khaledul is the general manager of BM Container depot which caught fire on Saturday night. The massive explosion following the fire burnt his legs and a side of his body. His car was also burnt in the fire.

Khaledul was rushed to a local hospital and later to Chattogram Medical College Hospital (CMCH). He was brought to Sheikh Hasina National Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute in the capital city at night.

This correspondent talked with Khaledul’s elder daughter Nafisa Ayman at the hospital. She was remorseful about why her father went to the depot.

“Abbu was at home. He was having dinner after offering Esha prayers. The news came about the fire at that moment and he rushed to the depot immediately. The fire-explosion burnt his legs and a side of his body. Abbu’s car has been burnt. Why did he ever go to the depot?”

Nafisa added, “I can’t even look at him. I can’t recognise my father.”

Sub inspector of industrial police Kamrul Hasan, 37, was transferred to Sitakunda around six months ago. After the depot caught fire, Kamrul was evacuating people from the depot.

The massive explosion went off at one point and Kamrul found many severed bodies of many people around him. Kamrul’s leg burnt and he was brought to Dhaka in the morning.

His cousin Azharul Islam said Kamrul is from Chandpur and had one child.

Makfarul, 65, talked with his cousin Asadul Haque over phone at around 9:45pm on Saturday and informed him about the fire.

Makfarul was brought to burn unit in the city as explosions damaged his eyes.

Makfarul, from Bogura, has two daughters. He works as security-in-charge of the depot after retiring from the police force as an assistant police superintendent.

Physicians of the burn institute told Prothom Alo that none of the injured in the fire-explosion in BM Container Depot in Chattogram’s Sitakunda are out of danger yet.

As of the latest update, 49 persons were killed and over a hundred injured in the deadly incident.