A fire tore through Korail Slum, Dhaka’s largest settlement and a major refuge for climate migrants, forcing terrified residents to flee. The blaze highlights the growing vulnerability of families already displaced by floods, cyclones and river erosion across Bangladesh.
A fire ripped through Korail Slum, the capital’s largest informal settlement and a major shelter for climate migrants, on Tuesday evening, sending waves of panic through one of the city’s most crowded neighbourhoods. Smoke rose over the Mahakhali area as residents fled through narrow alleyways, many carrying only what they could grab in seconds.
The first alert reached the Fire Service at 5:22 pm. Crews struggled to reach the heart of the settlement, where homes made of tin and bamboo stood tightly packed together. Sixteen units were eventually deployed to fight the blaze. No casualties were immediately reported, though flames were seen consuming rows of housing structures.
“We received information about a fire in Korail Slum at 5:22 PM. Eleven units were immediately dispatched and began operations. Later, another five units joined the effort to extinguish the blaze,” said Talha Bin Jasim, spokesperson for the Fire Service.
Thousands watched anxiously from the lakeside as fires lit up the dusk sky, unsure how much of their community would survive the night.
However, fire service informed the fire came under control after five hours of frantic efforts.
Change Initiative, a think tank, study reveaked that “Nearly 97% of climate-displaced families arriving in Dhaka migrated directly from disaster-prone coastal and riverine districts such as Barisal, Bhola, Noakhali and Jamalpur, seeking refuge in urban slums without any formal relocation or transitional support.”
Earlier, the slum last caught fire on the night of 22 February this year, when 10 units of the fire service managed to douse the flames. In that incident, 61 houses were burnt.
Two months before that, on 18 December 2024, another fire broke out in the slum, which was brought under control with efforts from seven fire service units.
A city within a city
Korail, which emerged in the early 1990s on government land beside Gulshan Lake, has grown into a sprawling settlement of more than 200,000 people. Surrounded by Dhaka’s wealthiest neighbourhoods, it operates as a parallel city densely packed, largely undocumented and largely absent from urban planning.
For decades, Korail has served as a labour hub for the capital. Its residents clean homes, drive rickshaws, stitch garments and support businesses across the city. Yet inside its boundaries, basic services remain scarce. Electricity is improvised, sanitation is fragile and fire hazards are constant.
The slum’s maze-like lanes, too narrow for fire trucks, have long been cited as a major safety risk.
M. Zakir Hossain Khan, Chief Executive of Change Initiative, Observer of Climate Investment Fund told, “This is not voluntary urban migration; it is forced climate displacement. When women-led families are compelled to abandon their homes overnight and resettle in precarious informal settlements, it reflects more than loss of property, it exposes the systemic failure of climate preparedness, local adaptation, and social protection mechanisms in the country. Descent living of climate induced family is not charity rather than their natural rights.
Climate migrants at the core
An estimated 70 percent of Korail’s residents are climate migrants who arrived after losing their homes to river erosion, cyclones and tidal flooding in coastal and riverine districts. Families from Bhola, Satkhira, Shariatpur and Barguna settled here after land disappeared and livelihoods collapsed.
For many, Tuesday’s fire marked a second displacement first driven by climate disaster, now by urban catastrophe. Residents who once escaped rising waters found themselves fleeing rising flames.
Some stood in silence near Gulshan Lake as the fire spread, fearing they would again be left with nothing but uncertainty.
A crisis without protection
As firefighters worked into the evening, officials said the cause of the blaze was still under investigation. The scale of destruction and the number of people left homeless were yet to be assessed.
The incident underscored the fragility of life for climate-displaced communities who migrate to Dhaka in search of safety. With no formal policy for climate migrants and no legal housing protection for Korail residents, the fire highlighted a growing humanitarian gap in one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries.
For thousands who fled storms and eroding banks, Korail was the last refuge. On Tuesday night, as smoke drifted over the water, that refuge burned.
