DHAKA: The death toll from a fire at a Bangladeshi factory soared to at least 121 as rescue workers recovered 112 bodies Sunday, the national fire chief told AFP.

“We've found 112 dead bodies this morning,” fire brigade director general Brigadier General Abu Nayeem Mohammad Shahidullah told AFP.

“We resumed our search this morning and found the bodies lying on different floors of the factory building,” he said.

The fire broke out in the ground-floor warehouse of the multi-storey Tazreen Fashion factory 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Dhaka on Saturday evening, trapping hundreds of workers on the upper floors, police said.

Police inspector Mostofa Kamal had previously told AFP that nine workers died and about 100 workers were injured.

Kamal said many workers jumped from the factory's upper floors to escape the flames before firefighters arrived to put the blaze out.

The cause was not immediately known but fires as a result of short circuits and shoddy electrical wiring are common in Bangladeshi garment plants, which use cheap labour to produce clothes shipped to Western countries.

Flyover collapse

At least 13 people were killed and dozens are feared missing after a flyover under construction collapsed in Bangladesh’s southeastern port city of Chittagong, police said Sunday.

“So far 13 dead bodies have been recovered,” sub-inspector Mohammad Alauddin told AFP, adding that military rescue teams had been called in to help with the search for victims.

The number of missing could not immediately be confirmed but police constable Shakakhawat Hossain told AFP from the scene that dozens could be trapped under the debris.

Hossain said about 20 people were injured, including some during clashes between police and an angry crowd that attacked the site offices of the construction company after the flyover collapse on Saturday evening.

In September the World Bank said it was concerned about corruption in Bangladesh, reiterating that it would not get new funding for a bridge project until a credible probe into corruption around the project was undertaken.

The Washington-based institution said it was not yet prepared to reactivate financing for the $3 billion Padma road and rail bridge which was intended to connect the capital Dhaka to coastal districts.