DHAKA, 27 February 2007 — A fire swept through an 11-story building housing two private television channels and a newspaper office in the Bangladesh capital yesterday, killing at least three people.

Two of the victims died of burn injuries while another died after leaping from the sixth floor of the building to escape the flames, doctors and witnesses said. Dozens of people were hurt.

Rescue teams led by the army extinguished the blaze just after dusk. “We have completed the search over the whole building and found no more people dead or injured,” an army officer supervising the rescue operations said.

Earlier, fire fighters and air force helicopters rescued nearly 150 people from the building. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

The building, in the Kawranbazar business district of Dhaka, houses the NTV and RTV stations and the Amar Desh newspaper — all owned by a former member of Parliament.

The Bangladesh Steel and Engineering Corp. (BSEC) building caught fire at around 10:30 a.m. Air force helicopters, troops and firefighters rescued dozens of people from the building in the crowded commercial district in central Dhaka, ATN Bangla TV station reported.

Many people were stranded for hours on the building’s rooftop before being rescued by troops and firefighters, according to live television footage.

Some floors of the building were engulfed in smoke several hours after the fire. Firefighters used ropes and steel ladders to bring people to safety, witnesses said.

Walls of flame and choking black smoke earlier hampered rescue efforts by the military, which called in helicopters to battle the fire and try to save the unknown number of people stuck in the building.

Local television showed dozens of people huddled on the rooftop calling for help to thousands who massed on the streets below, as smoke billowed out of the lower floors of the building.

“I am afraid several hundreds are still trapped inside the building,” local police chief Jane Alam told AFP earlier.

A woman, Maksuda Begum, 40, died at state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital from injuries. Another man, Aftabuddin Mollah, 50, who leapt from the fourth floor, died of his injuries in the hospital.

More than 50 injured people were being treated at the state-run hospital.

Most were injured after jumping from the building to flee the flames and thick smoke, doctors said.

“It was a hell-like situation,” said Samia Raman from NTV, the country’s biggest private television network, who managed to get out of the inferno.