At least 21 people have been killed and 50 others injured in a Bangladesh clothing factory fire, police officials say.
The officials said that the six-storey building was engulfed in flames for more than two hours at the Garib and Garib Newaj garment factory in Gazipur district on Thursday.
Local television stations said at least 21 people had died of burns or suffocation, including 14 women. Most of the casualties were likely to be women, who make up the bulk of Bangladesh's two million textile workers.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
Labor rights groups say Bangladesh has around 4,000 textile factories and many of them are prone to fires as a result of poor safety standards.
The textile industry in Gazipur district, located 50km north of the capital Dhaka, is one of the country's most important, accounting for more than $10 billion in exports annually, or 80 per cent of total exports mainly to the United States and Europe.
PHOTO CAPTION
A Bangladeshi worker irons a sweater at a factory in Ashulia on the outskirts of Dhaka in 2004.
Al-Jazeera