A woman mourns after her mother died in a fire at a clothing factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh, on Feb. 26, 2010. At least 21 people were killed and dozens injured in a fire at a Bangladesh clothing factory on Thursday. (Andrew Biraj/Reuters)

At least 21 people were killed and dozens were injured when a fire raced through a sweater factory near the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka Thursday night, police said Friday.

The fire raged for two hours at the Garib & Garib Sweater Factory in Gazipur, about 30 kilometres north of Dhaka, before it was brought under control Friday morning, firefighter Abdur Rashid said.

All of the victims of the fire, including 14 women, died from smoke inhalation. The search for additional victims was called off Friday morning.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

The fire comes nearly four years to the day of a deadly fire that ripped through a textile mill in Chattagong, about 215 kilometres southeast of Dhaka, on Feb. 24, 2006. That fire killed 54 workers and injured another 150, prompting then prime minister Khaleda Zia to order a probe. Witnesses had reported that the three-storey factory in that fire had only one exit.

Clothing factories in Bangledesh are prone to fires as a result of low safety standards, and labour rights groups say many of the country's 4,000 textile factories are unsafe.

The sector earns about $10 billion US annually from exports, and employs about two million workers, mostly women.

With files from The Associated Press