45 Workers Die in Bangladesh Factory Fire

DHAKA, Bangladesh — A fire caused a stampede in a garment factory, killing at least 45 people, many of them women and children, in an industrial town near Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, police and doctors said Sunday.

More than 100 others were hospitalized with injuries after the fire and stampede Saturday night at Chowdhury Knitwear Garments factory, a four-story building in Narsinghdi, about 40 miles northeast of Dhaka.

The death toll could rise because some of those injured were in critical condition, a police official supervising the rescue work said.

At least 900 workers, many of them women, were at the factory when a fire broke out on its fourth floor, where towels and knitwear are ironed.

In panic, the workers scrambled down the factory’s narrow stairs, and many of them fell atop one another.

The only exit door on the ground floor was reportedly locked for security reasons, preventing the workers from leaving the factory.

Hundreds of local people joined firefighters to break open the locked gates and rescue victims.