Dubai : A young Bangladeshi employee of a furniture trading firm has been found dead in his apartment in Karama in Dubai.
The flat had no electricity since power had been disconnected a few days ago for non-payment of bill.
The dead man Mizan Mohammed Younes, 28, was reportedly sleeping alone in a room of the apartment and using a fan run by a power generator. His room-mates had left the flat following disconnection of power by Dewa.
Mizan had been living alone in the room for two days.
“We are waiting for the post mortem report,” a source at Al Ghazal Furniture Trading Company told Emirates 24|7.
The Indian owner of the furniture trading firm informed Dubai Police after the body was found in the room, in which a generator was also present.
“There was no electricity in the room and he must have kept a kerosene-run generator to power an electric fan. He had been working with us for a year and came to work last Wednesday. We did not see him on Thursday and I tried to call him but there was no response,” said Basheer from the furniture trading firm.
According to a preliminary forensic report of Dubai Police, the man could have died of inhaling carbon monoxide from the generator in the room, an official source said.
A woman living in the adjacent flat felt a bad smell when she went out to buy something. She reported the matter to others who informed Dubai Police.
The body was taken by the police for forensic investigation and will be repatriated to Bangladesh after completion of formalities.
Inhaling carbon monoxide can cause death to people sleeping in their vehicles with the air conditioner switched on and in closed rooms where generators are used.
People who are sleeping or drunk can either pass out or die before they show any symptoms of carbon poisoning, according to experts.
Carbon monoxide (CO) comes from fumes produced when fuel is burned in cars or trucks, small engines, stoves, lanterns, grills, fireplaces, gas ranges, or furnaces. CO can build up in the air indoors and poison people and animals who breathe the air.
Earlier, Colonel Khaled Obaid Saeed bin Shamsi, Director General of the General Directorate of Civil Defence in Sharjah, said inhalation of carbon monoxide is a new threat in the UAE and lack of attention to cars and cooling devices makes the poisonous gas a long-term threat and a ‘leaking gas’ killer.
In the first seven months of 2014, Sharjah Police recorded seven cases of suffocation due to inhalation of carbon monoxide and all those who died in these cases were in a state of deep sleep in their cars with the ACs on, and therefore did not feel the presence of the gas.
Carbon monoxide has no smell, colour or odour and only a CO detector can detect its presence in our surroundings.
