Bangladesh blaze reveals the deadly cost of corruption and overcrowding
- Business owners in old Dhaka routinely bribe government employees responsible for building oversight
While the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina touts the garment factories and gleaming office towers in Dhaka’s north side as signs of progress, illegal shops and overcrowding in Chawkbazar, one of the city’s many warren-like southern districts, impeded firefighters’ ability to put out Wednesday night’s blaze, illustrating the country’s uneven development.
The government has zoning laws and regulations on the books, but has met public resistance when it tried to enforce them, Bangladesh planning experts said on Thursday.
Business owners in old Dhaka routinely bribe government employees responsible for building oversight, they said.
After a warehouse storing flammable material caught fire in 2010 in Nimtoli, a district near Chawkbazar, killing at least 123 people, authorities promised to bring the area into compliance with building codes, and evict chemical warehouses from buildings where people lived.
Industrial facilities can’t legally exist in areas that are zoned residential, said Mohammed Manjur Morshed, an assistant professor of urban planning at Khulna University of Engineering and Technology.
