Rescuers carry an injured man from the burning NTV high rise office tower in Dhaka, Bangladesh. ©Abir Abdullah
I am sharing my experience of covering a recent fire tragedy at the NTV building. Munir, one photographer of DrikNEWS got a phone call from one of my students Liton regarding the breaking of fire. We lost no time and I left with Munir sitting pillion on his motor bike. We saw hundreds of civilians already on the street and watching the NTV building helplessly. Fire fighters arrived and started their rescue efforts with their limited resources. I was a bit confused about my position and running around the building and taking photos. I was wearing a short punjabi, my most comfortbale wear, and sandals. My sandal, trouser and punjabi got drenched with the water both from the street and from the hose pipe of the fire fighters. Suddenly I felt that the best place for taking photos is the front gate of the building where the light is mysterious with the smoke and the fire fighters putting all their efforts to extinguish the fire and rescue the stranded people from different stairs. I took a life risk attempt when one volunteer got electrified and fell down from the third floor into the balcony with the electric cable. Some one shouted from the same floor ‘everything got electrified, hey camera man don’t move any more’ — I was hesitating and finally moved close to him and took the photos.
The fire was spreading with alacrity and caught different floors in huge flames. Panicked people were crying and asking for help from the top floors. After almost three hours fight the situation came under control. I suddenly felt the urgency to go back in my office to file photos to my agency in Germany. Munir did a remarkable job to find his way to reach Pathshala avoiding thousands of people who gathered and blocked the street. I got phone call from my regional chief from Delhi to send the photos as soon as possible. It was almost 2:30 in the afternoon and I started to download photos in my laptop. After a quick editing and captioning I started filing photos. It took one hour to send twenty five photos including the downloading, editing, captioning and filing time. When I finished the entire job, I suddenly felt unbearably hungry, I went up to the dinning room of the Pathshala guest house. Rice became cold as the vegetables and the daal. I started eating like a stricken person who hadn’t known the taste of food for a couple of days……..
Abir Abdullah
This is outstanding documentary works!
Md. Akhlas Uddin — August 18, 2009