Dhaka: An explosion kills at least 19 people and injures dozens

• At least 19 people were killed and more than 50 others were injured.
• The cause of the blast was unknown but it may have been a gas explosion.
• The incident comes after two other tragic explosions in the country this weekend.

An explosion ripped through a building in a crowded area of Bangladesh’s capital on Tuesday, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than 50 others, according to authorities in the South Asian country.

Mahid Uddin Khondekar, the additional commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said the cause of the blast was unknown but it may have been a gas explosion.

“We are not sure, but it seems accidental,” he said, adding that the number of casualties and scale of the damage would become clearer after firefighters and rescue workers had completed their operations.

Although there were few people inside the building at the time of the blast, its placement on a busy road near a market meant that passersby were affected, according to Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Search and Rescue

Pictures show firefighters and other emergency personnel conducting search and rescue operations after dark. The collapsing and missing walls of the damaged structure; some units appear to have collapsed altogether, and debris covers the ground outside. Outside, relatives of the slain may be seen weeping.

According to Dinomoni Sharma, a fire department spokesman, 22 individuals were still hospitalized as of Wednesday morning.

On Wednesday, the Bangladeshi army will work to secure what remains of the building, and an inquiry into what caused the incident will be done, according to Sharma.

The incident comes after two other tragic explosions in the country this weekend; on Sunday, three people were killed in a suspected gas explosion in Dhaka, a densely crowded megacity of more than 23 million people.

On Saturday, seven people were killed and numerous others were injured when a fire broke out at an oxygen facility in southeastern Bangladesh after an explosion.

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