When Bangladesh was still reeling from the Old Dhaka fire, the FR Tower in Banani went up in flames. The Keraniganj factory fire by the end of the year also caused huge casualties.
A slew of measures had been recommended to avoid a recurrence in Old Dhaka after the 2010 Nimtoli fire, but the Churihatta incident showed not much had been learnt or done to avert such disasters.
And the FR Tower fire incident revealed a saga of corruption through which several floors of the high-rise office bloc were illegally built.
Road traffic accidents are quite common in Bangladesh, but in 2019, casualties in train crashes added to the national woes.
As for natural disasters, floods could not cause much damage like previous years, but the death toll, mostly from drowning, crossed 100 by the middle of the year.
Cyclones Fani and Bulbul were much stronger than many past storms and had threatened more devastation, but Bangladesh was mostly spared as the tropical storms hit India first.
FIRE
On Feb 20 night, a fire erupted in the buildings on an intersection of alleys in Chawkbazar’s Churihatta. It took 15 hours for the fire crews to tame the flames that claimed as many as 71 lives.
The damaged buildings housed warehouses of flammable chemicals, plastic and cosmetics that helped the flames spread fast.
Different groups have blamed sheer negligence by the government agencies in implementing the 17 recommendations that had been made by a committee constituted after the Nimtoli fire incident.
The authorities launched drives to remove the chemical warehouses and factories in Old Dhaka after the Chawkbazar fire but they backed off in the face of protests by traders.
Many people were trapped inside the FR Tower on Kamal Ataturk Avenue in Dhaka’s Banani when the 23-storey building caught fire on Thursday afternoon. Photo: Asif Mahmud Ove
Only 36 days later, Faruk Rupayan Tower or FR Tower, the high-rise office building in Banani, caught fire. The incident claimed 25 lives.
Photos of several people, including a Sri Lankan citizen, jumping off the building to save their lives shocked the nation.
Several people trapped inside the 22-storey FR Tower in Dhaka’s Banani during a fire incident on Thursday afternoon jumped off the building through broken glasses. Some others tried to climb down using wires and railings but many of them fell. This photo shows a man falling on the sidewalk after jumping off the building. Photo: Asif Mahmud Ove
The government identified over 50 officials, including a former chairman, as responsible for faults in the building’s design and construction.
Plastic goods found dispersed on the floor after a fire swept through a factory named ‘Prime Pet and Plastic Industries Limited’ at Chunkutia in Dhaka’s Keraniganj. Photo: Mahmud Zaman Ovi
On Dec 11, a fire in the factory of Prime Pet and Plastic Industries Ltd at Chunkutia in Keraniganj on the outskirts of Dhaka claimed 22 lives.
TRAIN CRASHES
Two trains collided while one of them was changing lines near Mandabagh Railway Station in Brahmanbaria’s Kosba on Nov 11. The collision between Udyan Express and Turna Nishitha left 16 people dead. The authorities suspended three people, including the driver of Turna Nishitha, over the accident.
Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan told parliament after the accident the ministry would be careful to avoid a repeat of such crashes.
But a few days later, the power car and engine of Rangpur Express caught fire after derailment in Sirajganj’s Ullapara. No casualties were reported.
The other big train crash of the year occurred earlier, on June 24, when five coaches of the Dhaka-bound Upaban Express from Sylhet went off the tracks while crossing a bridge in Moulvibazar.
Four passengers were killed and over 100 others were injured as a carriage fell off the bridge and two others overturned.
More than 150 homes were destroyed in Chandpur after Cyclone Fani battered the coastal district.
FANI, BULBUL
Cyclone Fani struck Bangladesh in the beginning of May, killing nine people and destroying over 1,000 homes.
The casualties and damage could have been much higher had the storm not hit the Indian coasts first.
But it caused intense damage to crops to the tune of Tk 385.4 million, according to government estimates.
For Fani, Bangladesh hoisted danger signal No. 7, but for Bulbul, the signal was raised to No. 10.
The very severe storm lost strength after making landfall near the Sundarbans in India’s West Bengal.
The scale of casualties, however, was not less. A total of 24 lives were lost in the storm that also damaged crops worth TK 2.63 billion. The Sundarbans mangrove forest also suffered huge damage.
The Bangladesh Meteorological Department’s website could provide updates on the storm for over 12 hours due to a “technical glitch”.
In the second half of July, swathes of Bangladesh went under water as over 100 died due to floods in around two dozen districts.
The flooding affected over 6 million people, according to the government.
Having been one of the countries that are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, Bangladesh also suffered extreme hot weather.
In June, heat wave swept over the country for most days in five years.
On June 17, the maximum temperature was recorded at 39.6 degrees Celsius in Jashore. Before cyclone Fani, mercury soured as high as 40 degrees Celsius in April.
Maximum daily rainfall of the year was recorded at 422 millimetres at Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar on Sept 9.
