The most destructive human-made disaster is a Fire accident. Fire accidents are occurring often in Bangladesh. Unconsciousness is the main and primary reason for this incident. Mostly the common fire accident happens in garment factories and slums in Bangladesh. Many others are happening such as depo, gas cylinder blast at home, oil, gas and power station, etc. The damages of a fire accident are at a very high rate and it not only takes a valuable life but also hampers the economy to a great extent. Every year Bangladesh is suffering this incident and has lost a lot of lives and hamper the economy. Sometimes fire accidents happening in a particular place multiple times. The unconsciousness and some other reasons are the causes of this type of accident.
One such incident is Chalantika slum fire, located in section 7 Mirpur, Dhaka. In the last eight months, fire accidents occurred three times and more than two thousand shanties are burned into the fires. The first time it was on August 16, 2019, then on January 24, 2020, and finally, the last time is March 11, 2020. Every time multiples units of fire service took over the situation under control within a few hours. But meanwhile, damages are completed. All the shanties are burnt and they were trying to make a new one, but their hope will not and never be on their destiny.
I covered all incident in this slum fire and follow up them after the incident. These photos are just a glimpse of some of those moments. I hope the audience could feel their pain through this documentation.
About Md. Shamim Shahnewaz
Md. Shamim Shahnewaz is a Software Engineer and Documentary Photographer. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) from The Peoples University of Bangladesh and pursued a Master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) from Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh. He has more than twelve years’ experience in core software development and currently working as a Senior Software Engineer in ServicEngineBPO. Besides his profession, Mr. Shahnewaz completed a certification course on “Basic Photography” from Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. Now he is a student in a mentorship program called “Documentary Photography Workshop” under the supervision of a renowned photographer Mohammad Rakibul Hasan in Bangladesh. As a human being, he wants to find social issues and the impact on defenseless people in society. He believes that photography has an impact on society and its development. So, his dream to become a documentary photographer.
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Copyrights:
All the pictures in this post are copyrighted to Md. Shamim Shahnewaz. Their reproduction, even in part, is forbidden without the explicit approval of the rightful owners.
