This Article is From Mar 07, 2014

Fire breaks out at Bangladesh garments factory, no casualties

Fire breaks out at Bangladesh garments factory, no casualties

Locals and firefighters try to control a fire at a garment factory in Dhaka on March 6, 2014.

Dhaka: A fire broke out at garment factory in the Bangladeshi capital on Thursday but no one was in the building at the time and there were no casualties, a police official said.

Firefighters were trying to put out the blaze with the help of police and volunteers, officials said.

"The factory closed for business at 5 pm and the fire broke out at 5.40 pm," a police official at Hazari Bag station told Reuters.

Garments are a vital sector for the South Asian nation, whose low wages and duty-free access to Western markets have helped make it the world's largest apparel exporter after China.

But a series of deadly incidents, including a building collapse that killed more than 1,100 people last April, has sparked global concern over weak safety standards in the $22 billion industry.

© Thomson Reuters 2014
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