Bangladesh Factory Stampede Kills 23

A false fire alarm caused a stampede in a seven-story factory building here Wednesday, killing at least 23 textile workers and injuring 100 others.

The workers, mostly women, panicked and scrambled down the building’s cramped staircase after an electric short-circuit set off a fire alarm. But there was no fire, according to firefighters at the scene in a suburb of the capital.

Most of the victims were either trampled to death or fell off the stairs in their hurry to flee, police said. Sixteen people were killed in the building and seven died later in a hospital, Bangladeshi police said.

Survivors said that there was no fire but that gates at the entrance to each of the building’s floors had been locked.

“We rushed to the gates when we heard the alarm and found them locked. We screamed for help, but there was no one to help,” one survivor said.

Another survivor, Meera, wailing over the body of her sister in a hospital, said: “We found ourselves caged like birds, and there was no one to answer our call for help.”

It was not immediately clear why the gates were locked. Police quoted a factory official as saying that it was a security measure.

The building in the suburb of Mirpur houses three garment factories, employing more than 2,500 workers, police said.

The government has ordered an inquiry.