Some 30 people, mostly firefighters, were injured during efforts to douse the flames, but there were no other casualties.
The fire broke out in the early hours of Saturday morning, when most of the nearly 1,500 shops in the complex were shut.
While the blaze was brought largely under control within four hours, it took longer to completely douse flames due to heavy smoke in confined spaces and flammable materials, mostly clothing items, fire service official Shahjahan Sikder said.
Most of the stores in the three-storey building were fully stocked ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid later this month.
Images showed shopkeepers and police trying to salvage the stocks, dragging out bundles of goods.
“Eid is just around the corner, and we lost everything. Such a great crisis came upon us at such a time,” shop owner Mohammad Rubel said in tears.
It was the second such incident this month. A massive fire ripped through another shopping complex…
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