'We couldn't save anything, everything burned': Thousands left homeless after Bangladesh blaze destroys shantytown

"We cried for our children to get out of the room, by the time we escaped, our house was on fire.

"We couldn't save anything. Everything burned."

Tearful mother Anju Begum speaks of her family's escape from their home after a blaze ripped though a shantytown in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Sunday night.

Thousands of people have been left homeless by the fire but miraculously no-one was killed, a senior Bangladesh fire official confirmed.

Four people were treated in hospital for minor injuries.

It took 125 firefighters to control and eventually put out the fire.

"The place was dense and it was beside high-rise buildings. We were able to control and extinguish the fire before it spread everywhere in the slum," Mohammed Habibur Rahman of Bangladesh Fire Service said.