At least 70 people have been killed in a fire that engulfed an old district of the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, authorities said Thursday.

Bangladesh police chief Mohammad Javed Patwary confirmed the latest death toll on Thursday morning, adding the number of fatalities might rise from the blaze in the tightly-packed Chawkbazar area.

[NurPhoto/Getty/Kyodo]

He told reporters the fire started at "a chemical warehouse full of chemical substances" on Wednesday night and likely spread quickly, but that firefighters eventually doused it.

The victims were mostly men but included women and children, according to local media.

The Associated Press quoted an official of the Fire Service and Civil Defense in Dhaka as saying many victims had been trapped under buildings.

The fire was reminiscent of a devastating blaze in 2010 in Nimtoli, an old, densely populated area of Dhaka, that killed more than 100 people.