Fire department official Mohammad Shihab said the blaze originated in a popular biriyani restaurant in Dhaka’s Bailey Road at 9:50pm Thursday (1550 GMT), and quickly spread to the upper floors, trapping scores of people.Firefighters brought the blaze under control in two hours, he said.They rescued 75 people alive, a statement from the fire service said.Fire officials told reporters they suspected the inferno was caused by a gas cylinder blast at the restaurant.”It raced through the upper floor quickly as there were restaurants in almost all floors of the building. They use gas cylinders,” one fire officer, who did not give his name, said.The government has ordered a probe into the incident.The Bailey Road building houses mainly restaurants along with several clothing and mobile phone shops.”We were at the sixth floor when we first saw smoke racing through the staircase. A lot of people rushed upstairs,” said a restaurant manager called Sohel.”We used a water pipe to climb down the building. Some of us were injured as they jumped from upstairs,” he said.
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