Nightmarish to forever haunt survivors
Relatives of RMG Factory inferno victims still gather at hospitals in search of their dear ones
Staff Correspondent
The few hours of the RMG factory inferno of February 23 night will forever haunt the survivors and the relatives of the victims. The survivors are among the fortunate few, who will not forget for a moment the nightmarish experience of the worst-ever RMG industrial fire that roasted 55 workers alive so far and injured hundreds more at KTS Composite Textile Mill at the Kalurghat BSCIC Industrial Area under Chandgaon Police Station. The relatives of the missing workers still gather everyday at the Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) and the burned factory area in search of their dear ones. A tired Omar Faruq was taking rest after four days of searching his younger brother Omar Chisty, 20, a cutting assistant of the factory, who has been missing since the deadly night. He said he is yet to find his brother dead or alive, neither in the CMCH wards or in the morgue. Hosne Ara, a poor mother standing in front of the factory gate carrying a scurf of her missing daughter Milu Akhter in hand, said Milu was suffering from fever on that morning and was reluctant to go to the mill. "Milu told me at 7.30am when we met for the last time before going to the factory that she would somehow manage a leave from the KTS bosses and return home early, but she didn't," Hosne Ara recalled the memories in tears. "I just want to know about her fate," the helpless mother said. A couple, Selim and Momtaj, who were working in the sewing section on the third floor of the mill, said we first went to the staircase when the fire broke out but could not get out of it due to the dark and hot smoke blowing out from the downstairs. "The other workers broke a window through which I came down with the help of a scurf to the second floor and found a bamboo fixed by the local people to rescue us," said Momtaj. My husband also managed to come down in similar way, she added. Selim, however, said there were about 500 workers on the third floor when the fire broke out. Ayesha Begum, 18, also a survivor working as a helper at the same floor in sewing section, said she joined the work on Thursday after four days of leave. She said she jumped from the second floor after coming down there with a rope through a window of the third floor. "I don't know how could I do that daring act," she said. Ayesha just got her left hand broken. "Who will take me to the hospital?" she asks as she stays alone at the local Selim Colony in the BSCIC area. Like her, Hasina, 13, Riaz, 12, and Aziz, 19, also jumped from the third floor and saved their lives.
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