Our Correspondent

CHITTAGONG, Jan 5: In another incident of fire scare at a RMG factory in CEPZ some 35 workers received injuries while trying to escape in a hurry from upstairs in the morning. The incident occurred in the readymade garment (RMG) factory, Pacific 2000, a unit of Pacific Jeans group.

BEPZA officials said sparks from a tube light caused panic among the workers on the fifth floor of the factory at around 9am. The incident occurred due to electric short circuit.

Workers got panicked following sparks and tried to come down hastily through the stairs that caused minor injuries to them. Fire fighters from the CEPZ area rushed to the scene and brought the situation under control within half an hour, port police said adding, some 400 workers, most of the them female, were working on the floor.

Duty officer of Port police station said one worker with neck injuries has been admitted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital while the rest were released after first aid in the BEPZA Hospital.

Normal duties resumed in the factory at around 10am, he said.

A similar incident of fire scare occurred in another garment factory in the Chittagong Export Processing Zone last month, police said.

General manager of CEPZ, SM Abdur Rashid, said the export processing zone has a separate fire fighting unit under a director to protect factories from fire incidents. They conduct fire drills and demonstrations for the factory workers once in a week every month and so far 30 per cent workers of each of the CEPZ factories have been trained and are capable to extinguish incidents of fire in the factories themselves.

"So they need not be panicked when such minor incidents happen. They were injured today while coming downstairs over rumours of fire incident which is not desirable as they have been trained to face such situation. It is a matter of only a few seconds to switch off electricity line of the factory," he said.