By Ian Johnston and Sohel Uddin, NBC News
A survivor was pulled alive from the ruins of an eight-story factory in Bangladesh on Friday, more than 16 days after it collapsed, killing more than 1,000 people.
Authorities in Bangladesh are reporting they found a woman alive in the rubble of a devastating factory roof collapse more than two weeks after the disaster. The death toll of the accident has now soared past 1,000 with still more bodies to be recovered. NBC’s Jim Maceda reports.
The woman was found trapped in the remains of the building and given water and food as rescuers tried to reach her. Rescuers stopped using heavy machinery on the site during the delicate operation, according to Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper.
Local television then showed a woman in a purple dress being freed from the rubble about 391 hours after the collapse. Bangladesh’s army spokesman Shahinul Islam told Reuters that the woman had been “rescued and taken to a military hospital.”
The woman was named as Reshma Begum, who is married with a young son, from the Dinajpur area by a senior official involved in the rescue operation, who added she was found in a mosque in the building’s basement. She was first spotted by a 15-year-old volunteer helping at the site called Monowar, the official said.
The official said she was dehydrated but able to walk.
A woman who survived more than 16 days in the rubble of a collapsed factory building in Bangladesh was rescued on Friday.
Categories: Asia, Bangladesh