AKIPRESS.COM - At least 10,000 people were left homeless after a huge blaze destroyed most of a slum area of Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, Telegraph reports.

The fire swept through the crowded slum of Mirpur and destroyed thousands of homes, most of them poorly constructed from rudimentary materials.

Officials said that the fire broke out in the early hours of Saturday and left around 2,000 mostly tin shacks in smouldering ruins. The ultimate number of people without homes could rise as high 50,000.

“I could not salvage a single thing. I don’t know what I will do,” 58-year-old Abdul Hamid, who ran a tea stall inside the slum told the AFP news agency.

Authorities eventually got the blaze under control and no one was killed, although several people had minor injuries, firefighters said.

Many residents – largely low-income garment factory workers – were not in the slum as they had left their homes to celebrate the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday with their families.

“Otherwise, the damage would have been bigger,” police chief Golam Rabbani said.

Around 10,000 people have taken refuge in temporary shelters at nearby schools closed for the week-long holiday.