Fire breaks out at Bangladesh garments factory, no casualties

Dhaka: A fire broke out at garment factory in the Bangladeshi capital on Thursday but no one was in the building at the time and there were no casualties, a police official said.

Firefighters were trying to put out the blaze with the help of police and volunteers, officials said.

"The factory closed for business at 5 pm and the fire broke out at 5.40 pm," a police official at Hazari Bag station told Reuters.

Garments are a vital sector for the South Asian nation, whose low wages and duty-free access to Western markets have helped make it the world's largest apparel exporter after China.

But a series of deadly incidents, including a building collapse that killed more than 1,100 people last April, has sparked global concern over weak safety standards in the $22 billion industry.