Source: USA Today & NY Times
courtesy: AM Ahad Associated Press
BY Julhas Alam, Associated Press
SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) — An eight-story building housing several garment factories collapsed near Bangladesh’s capital on Wednesday, killing at least 87 people and trapping many more under a jumbled mess of concrete. Rescuers tried to cut through the debris with earthmovers, drilling machines and their bare hands.
Firemen with the help of a large number of local volunteers rescue garment workers from the sandwiched floors of Rana Plaza at Bazar bus stand in Savar after it collapsed yesterday morning. Photo: Palash Khan
Rana Plaza is now a mountain of jumbled concrete debris. Concrete pillars of every shape dangle precariously, ready to snap and crash down. Close to the top just under a bundle of cloth lies the half-buried body of a woman. A huge pillar lies across her. Her blood-spattered hair has grown stiff.
Nobody takes much notice of her. Rescuers clamber around, peeking into hundreds of crevices of the heap of debris that was once a nine-storey building.
The dead can wait for now. More important are those who are trapped alive. Nobody can actually say how many are trapped but it would not be less than 2,000, on top of the 106 already confirmed dead.
Time is running out and the extreme heat is taking a toll on the survivors buried under the collapsed building
Building Collapse in Bangladesh Leaves Scores Dead
By JIM YARDLEY
NEW DELHI — An eight-story building in Bangladesh that housed several garment factories collapsed on Wednesday morning, killing at least 87 people, injuring hundreds of others, and leaving an unknown number of people trapped in the rubble, according to Bangladeshi officials and media outlets.
The building collapse occurred in Savar, a suburb of the national capital, Dhaka, and is the latest accident to afflict Bangladesh’s garment industry. Bangladesh is the world’s second-leading garment exporter, trailing only China, but the industry has been beleaguered by safety concerns, angry protests over rock-bottom wages and other problems.
This latest fatal accident, coming five months after a fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory killed at least 112 garment workers, is likely to again raise questions about work conditions in Bangladesh: workers told Bangladeshi news outlets that supervisors had ordered them to attend work on Wednesday, even though cracks were discovered in the building on Tuesday.
Categories: Asia, Bangladesh