The container depots are not complying with the fire fighting rules in Chattogram. Saber container depot of the city was fined two lakh taka.
The district administration, fire service and civil defence authorities are in a strict position to prevent major fires in Chattogram this winter. District Administration Executive Magistrate Prateek Dutta conducted a mobile court in Kalurghat heavy industrial area of the city on Sunday afternoon.
At this time, widespread irregularities were seen in Haji Saber Timber Company Limited. The name of the company's trade license and fire license do not match the type of business. Although it has a license as a timber company, a surface inspection shows that this is a container depot.
The fire license expired on June 21, 2021, but authorities did not budge before the BM depot fire incident. The depot authority applied for a two-year license. But due to lack of adequate fire fighting system and safety plan, the fire service authorities suspended the license renewal.
It is seen that around 200 drums of diesel have been stored illegally in an empty container. Several of the drums were open-mouthed and littered with cigarette ash and residue. There are not enough CCTV cameras in the depot. Besides, despite running the depot for the last 14 years, they have not taken any action to approve the fire
safety plan.
According to the Bangladesh National Building Code, the 20-acre depot was supposed to have about 1500 containers, but there were only 35 of them, most of which were useless. The depot has 100 salaried employees but only 4 have fire training although none of them know how to use fire extinguishers.
The depot did not have any layout plan passed by the Directorate of Inspection of Factories and Establishments. The mobile court ordered Depot AGM Md. Enamul Haque to pay a fine of Tk 2 lakh and correct all errors and deviations within the next 1 month.
Chattogram District Commissioner Abul Basar Mohammad Fakhruzzaman said, "There is no exemption for those who do not have a fire license or even if they have a license, there is no exemption for people who may lose their lives due to errors. This operation of the district administration will continue so that incidents like BM Depot do not happen again in Chattogram.