Firefighters try to extinguish a fire that broke out at a container storage facility in Sitakunda, about 40 kilometers from the key port of Chittagong, Bangladesh on June 5, 2022. Photo: AFP

At least 34 people have died after a fire that sparked a huge chemical explosion and was still blazing on Sunday at a shipping container depot in Bangladesh, officials said.

The toll was expected to rise with over 300 people injured, some of them seriously, and eyewitnesses said they had seen unrecovered bodies in the facility near the major southern port of Chittagong.

Several hundred rescuers were battling the blaze that broke out late Saturday in Sitakunda, about 40 kilometers from Chittagong, when a number of containers holding chemicals exploded, the fire brigade told reporters.

"The death toll from the fire has risen to 34," Elias Chowdhury, chief doctor of the region, told AFP as firefighters continued to battle the blaze. 

"More than 300 people are injured," Chowdhury said.

"These people - including several journalists who were doing Facebook lives - are still not accounted for," he added in a statement.

"There are still some bodies inside the fire-affected places. I saw eight or 10 bodies," one volunteer told reporters.

The injured include at least 40 firefighters and 10 police officers, Chittagong regional police chief Anwar Hossain told AFP. At least five firefighters were among those killed.

"The number of fatalities is expected to rise as some of the injured are in critical condition," Hossain said.

Eyewitnesses said that the blast engulfed people who had been battling the fire.

"I was standing inside the depot. The explosion just threw me some 10 meters from where I was standing. My hands and legs are burnt," lorry driver Tofael Ahmed said.   

The explosion was so loud that it shook residential buildings several kilometers from the depot, said Mohammad Ali, 60, who has a nearby grocery store.

"A cylinder flew around half a kilometer from the fire spot to our small pond when the explosion occurred," he said. 

"The explosion sent fireballs in the sky. Fireballs were falling like rain. We were so afraid we immediately left our home to find refuge... We thought the fire would spread to our locality as it is very densely populated," he said. 

The container depot held hydrogen peroxide, fire service chief Brigadier General Main Uddin told reporters. "We still could not control the fire because of the existence of this chemical," he said.

Chowdhury, chief doctor in Chittagong, said the injured had been rushed to different hospitals in the region as doctors were brought back from holiday to help.

Requests for blood donations for the injured flooded social media. 

Emergency crew were still working to put out the fire Sunday morning and military clinics were helping to treat the injured.

AFP