Bangladesh building collapse kills 82
An eight-storey building on the outskirts of Dhaka
containing several garment factories and thousands of workers collapsed
yesterday, killing at least 82 people with many more feared dead. Only the
ground floor of the Rana Plaza in the town of Savar outside the Bangladesh
capital remained intact when the block -- which one minister said was illegally
constructed -- imploded at about 9.00 am.
A Bangladeshi firefighter carries an injured garment worker
after an eight-storey building collapsed. AFP
Corpses and the injured were evacuated from the higher
reaches of the pile of flattened floors with makeshift slides made from cloth
which just hours earlier was being cut into shirts and trousers for export to
Western markets. Hiralal Roy, a senior emergency ward doctor at the nearby Enam
hospital where victims are being taken, told AFP that the death toll was 82 and
at least 700 injured people had been treated at the hospital. “The toll will
rise as conditions of some injured were critical “ he told AFP.
Some workers complained that the building had developed
cracks on Tuesday evening, triggering an evacuation, but they had been forced
back to the production lines by their managers. “The managers forced us to
rejoin and just one hour after we entered the factory the building collapsed
with a huge noise,” said a 24-year-old worker who gave her first name as
Mousumi. “I am injured. But I’ve not found my husband who was working on the
fourth floor,” she told AFP, estimating that 5,000 people worked inside the
building, which also housed apartments, a bank and shops. Home Minister
Muhiuddin Khan told reporters that the building was illegal and violated the
country’s building code. The huge death toll was likely to raise further
questions about safety in the garment industry.
AFP
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