100 Dead in Bangladesh Fire

Over 100 people have been killed in a fire that ripped through a crowded residential neighborhood in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The fire, caused by a fault in an electrical transformer, spread rapidly as it consumed chemicals in stores and small-scale factories, and quickly engulfed several apartment blocks, Reuters reports.

"Flames leapt up to the sixth floor of buildings. It was a huge inferno, " one witness said. Victims included many guests who were trapped at a wedding party on the roof of one of the buildings. Over 150 people, many with serious burns, were hospitalized. "I've never had such a harrowing experience in my 40 years here," a doctor at the burns unit of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital said as patients and grieving relatives crammed the corridors. (More Dhaka stories.)