NARAYANGANJ, Bangladesh: The death toll from a gas explosion that tore through a Bangladesh mosque has risen to 24, officials said Sunday, as rescuers described how survivors jumped into a nearby open sewer to escape the flames.
Worshippers were at Friday evening prayers when the blast sent a ball of fire through the mosque in the central district of Narayanganj near the capital Dhaka, emergency services said.
Eight more people — including the mosque’s imam and muezzin, who led prayers — died overnight taking the toll to 24, said Samanta Lal Sen, a spokesman for a specialist burns hospital in Dhaka.
“The conditions of 13 injured people were critical. Bodies of some of the injured were 70-80 percent burnt,” he told AFP, adding there were fears the toll could climb higher.
“It is tough to survive if anyone has more than 30 percent of his body burnt.”
Forty-five people in total were injured, police said.
Mohammad Salim said he rushed to the mosque after the explosion, adding the blast’s shock waves shook the neighborhood.
He said burnt worshippers threw themselves into an open sewer next to the mosque.
“They wailed ‘save, save us’ as they rolled in the sewer water to cool their burnt bodies. Their faces were charred and were beyond recognition,” Salim, who lost two cousins and a brother-in-law in the explosion, told AFP.
“I lifted three of them out of water. As I touched them, their skin peeled out from their bodies. We took them to a hospital on rickshaws.”
There has been growing anger over the incident after the committee running the mosque alleged the state-run gas transmission firm had earlier demanded a bribe to fix the leaks quickly.
“A probe body is looking into how the explosion occurred and whether there was any negligence on our part,” the company’s managing director Ali Mohammad Al Mamun told AFP.
Investigators suspected a spark from an air conditioner — which came on after a power cut — started the blaze.
The committee’s president Abdul Gafur told AFP the mosque started experiencing problems with the gas pipes a few days earlier.
Local fire chief Abdullah al Arefin, who is part of the team investigating the explosion, told AFP the committee said they had smelt gas for the past seven days.
“But they did not have any idea that this could lead to such a big fire,” he said.
Bangladesh’s energy minister Nasrul Hamid, who has visited the site, has ordered a probe into the committee’s allegations, a spokesman for his ministry, Mir Aslam, said.
In Bangladesh, safety regulations are often flouted. Hundreds are killed each year in fires in the nation of 168 million people.
Bangladesh mosque gas explosion toll rises to 24
https://arab.news/wjuud
Bangladesh mosque gas explosion toll rises to 24
- Eight more people — including the mosque’s imam, who led prayers — died overnight taking the toll to 24
- Burnt worshippers threw themselves into an open sewer next to the mosque
Pull him off TV: Steve Bannon shuts down Sen. Lindsay Graham
- Trump’s former chief strategist called for the senator to be registered as a foreign agent
DUBAI: Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon called on Tuesday for US Senator Lindsey Graham to be registered as a foreign agent of the Israeli government, escalating a growing conservative backlash against the senator’s vocal support for Israel.
Speaking on his podcast “War Room,” Bannon said Graham should be “pulled off of television,” adding: "This is dangerous… because you have guys like Lindsey Graham and dozens more that are doing the wrong thing.”
In a Fox News interview on Monday, Graham said: “To all the antisemites, to all the isolationists… I’m not with you, I’m with Israel, I will be with Israel to our dying day.”
Graham also urged Gulf Arab states to join military action against Iran. “What I want you to do in the Middle East, to our friends in Saudi Arabia and other places, [is] step forward and say, ‘this is my fight too, I join America, I’m publicly involved in bringing this regime down,’” he said.
In a post on X, Graham questioned the value of a US defense agreement with Saudi Arabia following the evacuation of the American embassy in Riyadh, writing: “Why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?”
Faisal Abbas, editor-in-chief of Arab News, responded to Graham’s comments in a Sky News interview, saying: “He flip flops so much, it’s actually entertaining.”
“On one hand, he says he will never set foot in Saudi Arabia. The next day, he’s here signing multimillion-dollar deals.”
“I don’t think anyone here takes him seriously,” Abbas added.
He warned Graham to be careful what he wished for: “Do you really want Saudi Arabia involved in this war putting our oil facilities at risk or do you want us stabilizing the energy markets?”
Graham pressed further, warning that inaction would carry a price. “Hopefully Gulf Cooperation Council countries will get more involved as this fight is in their backyard. If you are not willing to use your military now, when are you willing to use it?”
“Hopefully this changes soon. If not, consequences will follow.”
Graham's remarks drew sharp criticism from Bannon and others including podcast host Megyn Kelly.
She questioned on X whether Graham was overstepping his authority as a senator, writing: “When did Lindsay Graham become our president?”
Kelly also said Graham had threatened Lebanon, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, the wider Arab region, and Spain within a 24-hour period.
The problem with Graham “isn’t (just) that he’s a homicidal maniac, it’s that Trump likes and is listening to him,” she said in another post.
