Worker Mohammad Tareque went out of a garment factory in Gazipur’s Kaliakair Upazila on Wednesday after hearing a noise.

He saw dozens of intrigued onlookers around a cylinder covered with a wet sack. The cylinder was emitting gas with a hissing sound, attracting the attention of passersby.

All hell broke loose as he took several steps after turning around to return to the factory.

A blaze engulfed the people on the street when someone lit a stove in a nearby house.

The Mouchak Tilerchala neighbourhood of mainly low-income people living in slum-like tin-roofed houses, each with several families, is usually crowded.

The street was also crowded, including with children and women, while some garment factory workers and others were returning home for Iftar just before sunset.

Tareque recalled the terrifying moments of the fire that spread furiously as he was undergoing treatment with 33 other victims of the incident at the Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in Dhaka in the evening.

One of the injured, Rafiqul Islam, said a family left a kitchen cylinder in an alley after gas started leaking from it.

A fire spread following an explosion when many people were using the street just before Iftar, he said. Rafiqul, a garment factory worker, was passing by the street at the time.

Another injured, Ariful Islam, 40, said most of the people on the street at the time of the explosion were injured.

Rahima, a 3-year-old girl identified with a single name, was sobbing whenever she was gaining consciousness at the institute. Her mother was trying to soothe her by planting kisses on her.

Abdullah Al Arefin, the deputy assistant director of Gazipur Fire Service and Civil Defence, said resident Shafique Khan brought a refilled cylinder, from which gas was coming out while he was replacing the empty one in his kitchen.

He then threw the cylinder out on the street, where fire from a clay stove triggered the explosion, Arefin said.

Residents of the area rushed the injured to local hospitals, from where they were sent to Dhaka.

Health Minister Samanta Lal Sen rushed to the institute to see the patients after hearing about them.

Some of the patients had 90 percent of their body surface burnt, according to him, “None of them can be ruled out of danger,” he said.

The institute’s Assistant Professor SM Ayub Hossain said 15 of the patients were in critical condition with 50-90 percent of their body surface burnt. “We’re trying to save them.”

Associate Professor Pradeep Chandra Das said most of the victims suffered life-threatening burns in their respiratory systems.

Among the victims are seven children, including two with more than 90 percent burns, according to him.