Ten killed in Bangladesh factory blast

factory, workers, fashion, sewingA boiler explosion at a Bangladeshi garment factory has killed 10 people and injured dozens, the latest mishap to hit one of the world’s biggest garment producers.

The blast happened late on Monday at a plant owned by Multifabs Limited, a Bangladeshi company on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka, a fire official said.

The firm supplies knitted apparel to clients in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Spain, Netherlands and Britain, including to Littlewoods, one of Britain’s oldest retail brands, according to its website.

“Nine people were killed in the blast and one died in hospital,” fire service official Palash Chandra Modak said.

The company said the plant was functioning well and the boiler, procured from Germany, had just been serviced. The factory had been shut for 10 days for the Eid period at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and was being readied to resume operations from Tuesday.

“This was an accident. Everything was fine,” Mahiuddin Faruqui, company chairman and managing director, told Reuters.

“The boiler was running well. After servicing when workers were trying to restart it, it went off,” he said.

Bangladesh’s garment-making industry, the biggest in the world after China’s, employs four million people and generates 80 per cent of its export earnings.

Bangladesh’s garment sector came under scrutiny after the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in 2013 that killed more than 1100 people, and a fire at a garment factory in 2012 that killed 112 workers.

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