Fire at Dhaka airport cargo terminal forces flight delays, diversions

Flights out of Bangladesh’s main airport were delayed or diverted on Saturday after a major fire broke out in the cargo terminal, officials said.

Thirty-six firefighting units are working to douse the flames, Talha Bin Zasim, an officer at the Fire Service and Civil Defence Media Cell, told Reuters.

Operations at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport were suspended, airport official Masudul Hasan told reporters, adding all aircraft are safe.

There was no immediate information as to what may have caused the blaze.

Both domestic and international flights were affected.

An IndiGo flight from Delhi to Dhaka was diverted to Kolkata, and an Air Arabia flight from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates was sent on to Chittagong.

Meanwhile, a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong was seen circling in the sky after failing to land at Dhaka airport, officials said.

The army, navy, and air force joined the fire service in efforts to bring the blaze under control.

This is the third major fire reported in Bangladesh this week. A fire on Tuesday at a garment factory in Bangladesh and an adjacent chemical warehouse killed at least 16 people and injured others. On Thursday, another fire burned down a garment factory building in an export processing zone in Chittagong.

Bangladeshi prosecution lawyers demanded on Thursday that fugitive ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina receive the death penalty in her trial for crimes against humanity.

Hasina has defied court orders to return from India, where she fled last year, to face charges of ordering a deadly crackdown in a failed attempt to crush a student-led uprising.

Up to 1,400 people were killed in the clashes between July and August 2024, according to the United Nations.

“We demand the highest punishment for her,” chief prosecutor Tajul Islam told reporters outside court.

“For a single murder, one death penalty is the rule. For 1,400 murders, she should be sentenced 1,400 times — but since that is not humanly possible, we demand at least one.”

The prosecution alleges that Hasina, 78, was “the nucleus around whom all the crimes committed during the July–August uprising revolved”.

She is being tried in absentia alongside two former senior officials.