Fire at launch in Chandpur doused

A river launch has caught fire while it was anchored at Chandpur Launch Terminal in the district town. Two floors of the ‘MV Eagle-1’ were damaged in the fire that broke out around 6:30am on Sunday. The fire erupted on the second floor of the vessel that plies on the Dhaka-Chandpur route. It was anchored in the terminal to take passengers, the launch’s supervisor Md Jamal Hossain said. One firefighting unit struggled for an hour to control the blaze. However, there were no casualties since the vessel was empty during the fire, Hossain said. An electric short circuit caused the fire, said Chandpur (north) fire service official Anwarul Haque. All furniture, shops and air conditioners of the three-storey launch were gutted in the fire, supervisor Hossain said. Authorities estimated a loss of around Tk 10 million, according to bdnews24.com.