Dhaka: A massive fire tore through Korail slum, one of Dhaka’s largest and most densely populated informal settlements, on the evening of 25 November, leaving thousands of residents homeless and turning makeshift dwellings into charred rubble.
The fire erupted shortly after sunset around 5:20–5:22 pm, according to fire-service reports. Witnesses described orange flames leaping sky-high and thick smoke engulfing the slum, prompting panic among residents who fled with whatever they could grab.
The settlement, home to nearly 80,000 people, lies squeezed between the affluent districts of Gulshan and Banani, a stark contrast between high-end neighbourhoods and a sprawling slum of tin-roofed homes.
Because the slum’s dwellings are tightly packed, made of flammable materials (tin, bamboo, wood), the fire spread quickly leaving residents almost no time to salvage belongings.
Authorities dispatched 19–21 fire-service units to douse the flames. However, their response was severely hampered by heavy traffic and the extremely narrow alleys inside Korail. Fire engines could not navigate the maze-like lanes, forcing firefighters to leave vehicles at a distance and manually lay long hoses through cramped passages.
Compounding the difficulty was a shortage of nearby water fire crews at one point had to pump water from distant sources, including setting up generators near a canal to feed pipelines.
After a struggle lasting over five hours, the fire was eventually contained at around 10:30–10:35 pm.
Preliminary assessments by fire-service officials estimate that about 1,500 homes were destroyed in the blaze. Given typical household sizes in the slum, this likely translates to thousands of people rendered homeless in a single night.
While official statements so far indicate no confirmed fatalities, the emotional and material loss for families is immense. Residents recounted how they lost everything furniture, appliances, personal documents, and the little savings they had painstakingly built over years.
One tearful resident, forced to stand on the roadside with children, described: “I couldn’t save a single thing … everything we owned earned through so much struggle burned to ashes.”
Others, caught off-guard at work, rushed back only to find their homes reduced to ashes, holding only a few salvaged items like a TV or a gas cylinder symbol of loss that took decades of hard labour to acquire.
Shortly after the flames subsided, fire-service officials pointed to tangled electrical wiring and the widespread presence of gas cylinders in nearly every home common hazard in informal settlements as potential contributing factors.
But experts and eyewitnesses argue that such disasters are not merely accidents they are the predictable outcomes of systemic neglect. The lack of strict building codes, poor enforcement of safety standards, overcrowding, and absence of accessible firefighting infrastructure have made slums like Korail perpetual tinderboxes.
Residents say this isn’t the first fire the slum has witnessed several earlier conflagrations in recent years. Each time, families rebuild with borrowed money or scrap materials, only to remain exposed to the same hazards.
As night fell, hundreds of families were seen huddling on sidewalks, in mosques, garages, or open spaces carrying children, essential documents, a handful of clothes many with nowhere to go.
Local relief efforts have begun, with volunteers and community groups offering temporary shelter, basic aid and first-aid assistance. But the scale of devastation means that meaningful recovery rebuilding homes, regaining livelihoods, restoring a semblance of dignity will take time, resources and coordinated support.
In the long run, this incident underscores a pressing question for urban planners and authorities: Will they treat this as just another tragic fire or will this become a turning point that compels real reforms in building regulations, safety infrastructure, and social housing policies for Dhaka’s vulnerable populations.