Bashundhara City

Bashundhara City
Location Panthapath, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Opening date 6 August 2004
Management Bashundhara City Dev. Ltd.
Owner Bashundhara Group
No. of stores and services 2325 shops including 100 food courts.[1]
No. of anchor tenants 9
No. of floors Mall: 8
Office: 21
Parking 500 cars
Website http://www.bashundhara-city.com
Dome of Bashundhara City Mall.
Interior of Bashundhara City Mall.
Blaze at The Bashundhara City March 2009 Fire
Afternoon view
At night
Interior
The Dome at night

Bashundhara City (Bengali: বসুন্ধরা সিটি) is a shopping mall in Kawran Bazar in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with a rotunda architecture.[2][3] Opened to the public on 6 August 2004, the mall is in Panthapath, near Karwan Bazar. Bashundhara City is 21 stories tall, of which 8 are used for the mall and the remainder as the corporate headquarters of the Bashundhara Group.

The mall has space for 2,500 retail stores and cafeterias and has a large underground gymnasium, a multiplex movie theater, a top-floor food court, an ice skating rink, and a theme park. The fully air-conditioned shopping mall with rooftop gardens is considered a modern symbol of the emerging city of Dhaka. Bashundhara City is one of the largest shopping malls in South Asia: up to 25,000 people visit daily.

It is the first western-style mall in the city, designed by the principal architect Mustapha Khalid Palash[4] and Mohammad Foyez Ullah of Vistaara. The cost of the building was more than $100 million; construction started in 1998 under Shafiat Sobhan Vice Chairman Bashundhara Group.[2] The building has been described as an indication of the severe division between the middle class and the lower class. It is one of the showcases of development in Bangladesh.

2009 fire

On 13 March 2009, the top floors of the Bashundhara City complex were damaged by a fire. The blaze started around 1:30 pm, after Friday prayers, on one of the top floors.[5] Most of the offices were empty, since Friday is the first day of the weekend in Bangladesh. A security guard was killed as he leaped off the top of the building to escape the fire. Seventeen others were injured. The chief security officer of the building was rescued from the roof by a Bangladesh Air Force Bell-212 helicopter.[6]

Later in the day, reports indicated three more people were killed – all found in an elevator by fire fighters. Fifty people were injured – most treated in hospitals for smoke inhalation. The fire took six hours to bring under control due to the summer winds.[7][8] It attracted thousands of onlookers outside the complex from Panthapath to Hatirpul, causing traffic jams.[5]

Minister of Home Affairs Tanjim Ahmad Sohel ordered a three-member committee to review the incident. He blamed a lack of equipment for the duration of the fire.[9] The city mayor, Sadeque Hossain Khoka, ordered all fire services in the capital to the scene with 15 fire trucks and ordered army personnel to help.[10][11]

Wikinews has related news: 7 killed, 50 injured in Bangladesh shopping mall fire
Wikinews has related news: Bangladesh security tightened following Pilkhana massacre and Bashundhara City fire

The fire was extinguished after nearly 10 hours. Most of the dead were employees at the building; shoppers were unharmed.[12] The mall was closed for two days and opened to the public on 16 March. According to the mall authorities, damages reached Tk200 crore (US$29m).[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bashundhara Group
  2. 1 2 Shoppers flock to Dhaka mega-mall
  3. ↑ Bashundhara Group
  4. ↑
  5. 1 2 Bashundhara City turns towering inferno bdnews24. Friday,March 13th, 2009 5:08 pm BdST.
  6. ↑ Fire hits Dhaka shopping center BBC News (BBC) (13 March 2009). Retrieved on 13 March 2009.
  7. ↑ Fire kills 4 at vast Bangladesh shopping mall CBC News (CBC Canada).
  8. ↑ Hossain, Farid (2009-03-13). "Fire at Bangladesh's Largest Mall Kills 7". ABC News. Archived from the original on 2009-03-27. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
  9. ↑ At Least 7 Dead In Bangladesh Mall Fire CBS News. (DHAKA, Bangladesh, 13 March 2009).
  10. ↑ One dead, 11 injured in shopping mall fire Gulf Times (13 March 2009). Retrieved on 13 March 2009.
  11. ↑ Fire at Bangladesh's largest mall kills 7 CNEWS.
  12. ↑ Fire crews conquer Dhaka mall fire Al Jazeera English (13 March 2009). Retrieved on 13 March 2009.
  13. ↑ Bashundhara mall to open to public tomorrow The Daily Star - Sunday, March 15, 2009

External links

Coordinates: 23°45′4.71″N 90°23′26.28″E / 23.7513083°N 90.3906333°E / 23.7513083; 90.3906333

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