'Dish cables and handkerchief': How a doctor survived Bailey Road fire
"I was on the eighth floor of the building when I saw a group of 8-10 people running frantically. I then went to the balcony and saw flames leaping up from the seventh floor.
"I told everyone not to run. When we grabbed fire extinguishers and opened the exit door to go outside, we saw a lot of smoke and flames."
HM Kamruzzaman, a doctor, was sharing his brave story of escaping from Thursday's (29 February) deadly fire at the Green Cozy Cottage shopping mall on Bailey Road in Dhaka that claimed 46 lives.
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He continued, "We went back inside and saw that our room was filled with smoke. Realising that we were suffocating I urged everyone to break the glass windows in the back. I then devised a plan to use the dish cables from the 8th floor to descend.
"I wrapped a handkerchief around my hand and started to descend by holding the cables. Unfortunately, the friction of the cables tore the flesh on my hand. I managed to land on an AC box on the fourth floor and carefully made my way down, gripping onto the balconies for support.
"Finally, I reached a tin shed below, from where I was able to climb down with the fire service's ladder," the doctor said.
"I requested the fire service to hurry up and put out the fire on the eighth floor with water as there were many people still trapped on there. I also asked them to arrange for their rescue."
