87 Dead in Bangladesh Garment Factory Collapse

[TruthOut10]

Rescuers tried to free dozens of people believed trapped in the concrete rubble after an eight-story building that housed garment factories collapsed, killing at least 87. Workers had complained about cracks in the structure before it came tumbling down, but were assured it was safe.

Searchers cut holes in the jumbled mess of concrete with drills or their bare hands, passing water and flashlights to those pinned inside the building near Bangladesh's capital of Dhaka.

"I gave them whistles, water, torchlights. I heard them cry. We can't leave them behind this way," said fire official Abul Khayer. Rescue operations illuminated by floodlights continued through the night.

The disaster came less than five months after a factory fire killed 112 people and underscored the unsafe conditions in Bangladesh's massive garment industry.

Workers said they had hesitated to go to into the building on Wednesday morning because it had developed such large cracks a day earlier that it even drew the attention of local news channels.

Abdur Rahim, who worked on the fifth floor, said a factory manager gave assurances that there was no problem, so employees went inside.

"After about an hour or so, the building collapsed suddenly," Rahim said. He next remembered regaining consciousness outside.

Collapsed Factory Building in Bangladesh Kills 87 - ABC News

 

[TruthOut10]

(Reuters) - A block housing garment factories and shops collapsed in Bangladesh on Wednesday, killing nearly 100 people and injuring more than a thousand, officials said.

Firefighters and troops dug frantically through the rubble at the eight-storey Rana Plaza building in Savar, 30 km (20 miles) outside Dhaka. Television showed young women workers, some apparently semi-conscious, being pulled out.

One fireman told Reuters about 2,000 people were in the building when the upper floors slammed down onto those below.

Bangladesh's booming garments industry has been plagued by fires and other accidents for years, despite a drive to improve safety standards. In November 112 workers died in a blaze at the Tazreen factory in a nearby suburb, putting a spotlight on global retailers which source clothes from Bangladesh.

"It looks like an earthquake has struck here," said one resident as he looked on at the chaotic scene of smashed concrete and ambulances making their way through the crowds of workers and wailing relatives.

"I was at work on the third floor, and then suddenly I heard a deafening sound, but couldn't understand what was happening. I ran and was hit by something on my head," said factory worker Zohra Begum.

Bangladesh factory building collapse kills nearly 100 | Reuters

 

[waltky]

Two babies have been born in the collapsed debris...

Death toll in Bangladesh collapse passes 300
Apr 26,`13 -- With time running out to save workers still trapped in a collapsed garment factory building, rescuers dug through mangled metal and concrete Friday and found more survivors - but also more corpses that pushed the death toll past 300.

Wailing, angry relatives fought with police who held them back from the wrecked, eight-story Rana Plaza building, as search-and-rescue operations went on more than two days after the structure crumbled. Amid the cries for help and the smell of decaying bodies, the rescue of 18-year-old Mussamat Anna came at a high cost: Emergency crews cut off the garment worker's mangled right hand to pull her free from the debris Thursday night. "First a machine fell over my hand, and I was crushed under the debris. ... Then the roof collapsed over me," she told an Associated Press cameraman from a hospital bed Friday.

More than 40 survivors were found late Friday evening on some floors of the Rana Plaza, said fire service inspector Shafiqul Islam, who searched the building. Through holes in the structure, he gave them water and juice packs to combat dehydration in the stifling heat and humidity. "They are alive, they are trapped, but most of them are safe. We need to cut through debris and walls to bring them out," Islam said. By Friday night, more than 80 survivors had been rescued, according to officials at a command center.

But more dead were also discovered. Shamim Islam, a volunteer who entered the collapsed building along with rescue workers, said he saw "many bodies inside." "I threw some water bottles through a hole, as there were some survivors, too," he said. The search will continue into Saturday, officials said, with crews cautiously using hammers, shovels and their bare hands. Many of the trapped workers were so badly hurt and weakened that they needed to be removed within a few hours, the rescuers said. There were fears that even if unhurt, the survivors could be dehydrated, with daytime temperatures soaring to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and about 24 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight.

Hundreds of rescuers crawled through the rubble amid the cries of the trapped and the wails of workers' relatives gathered outside the building, which housed numerous garment factories and a handful of other companies. Brig. Gen. Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder, who is overseeing rescue operations, said before the evening rescues that 2,200 people have been pulled out alive. A garment manufacturers' group said the factories in the building employed 3,122 workers, but it was not clear how many were inside it when it collapsed Wednesday in Savar, a suburb of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. Military spokesman Shahin Islam told reporters that 304 bodies had been recovered so far.

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See also:

Big brands rejected Bangladesh factory safety plan
Apr 26,`13 -- As Bangladesh reels from the deaths of hundreds of garment workers in a building collapse, the refusal of global retailers to pay for strict nationwide factory inspections is bringing renewed scrutiny to an industry that has profited from a country notorious for its hazardous workplaces and subsistence-level wages.

After a factory fire killed 112 garment workers in November, clothing brands and retailers continued to reject a union-sponsored proposal to improve safety throughout Bangladesh's $20 billion garment industry. Instead, companies expanded a patchwork system of private audits and training that labor groups say improves very little in a country where official inspections are lax and factory owners have close relations with the government.

In the meantime, threats to workers persist. In the five months since last year's deadly blaze at Tazreen Fashions Ltd., there were 41 other "fire incidents" in Bangladesh factories - ranging from a deadly blaze to smaller fires or sparks that caused employees to panic, according to a labor organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO umbrella group of American unions. Combined, the recent incidents killed nine workers and injured more than 660, some with burns and smoke inhalation and others with injuries from stampedes while fleeing.

Wednesday's collapse of the Rana Plaza building that killed more than 300 people is the worst disaster to hit Bangladesh's fast-growing and politically powerful garment industry. For those attempting to overhaul conditions for workers who are paid as little as $38 a month, it is a grim reminder that corporate social responsibility programs are failing to deliver on lofty promises.

More than 48 hours after the eight-story building collapsed, some garment workers were still trapped alive Friday, pinned beneath tons of mangled metal and concrete. Rescue crews struggled to save them, knowing they probably had just a few hours left to live, as desperate relatives clashed with police. "Improvement is not happening," said Amirul Haque Amin, president of the National Garment Workers Federation in Bangladesh, who said a total of 600 workers have died in factory accidents in the last decade. "The multinational companies claim a lot of things. They claim they have very good policies, they have their own code of conduct, they have their auditing and monitoring system," Amin said. "But yet these things keep happening." What role retailers should play in making working conditions safer at the factories that manufacture their apparel has become a central issue for the $1 trillion global clothing industry.

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[Dragonlady]

In Canada, the names of Canadian retailers having clothing made at that factory are being publicized and Canadians are organizing boycotts of companies which utilized this manufacturer.

 

[CaféAuLait]

So sad the death toll has risen.

Bangladesh garment factory death toll passes 300

Bangladesh garment factory death toll passes 300 | PennLive.com

 

[depotoo]

what a sad, sad story.

 

[Dragonlady]

This is what happens in unregulated free-market economies. There were stories of workers being locked into the plant and forced to stay, even as inspectors said the building was unsafe and for everyone to evacuate.

 

[rdean]

This is what happens in unregulated free-market economies. There were stories of workers being locked into the plant and forced to stay, even as inspectors said the building was unsafe and for everyone to evacuate.

Wow. That sounds like Republican Policy. Didn't Mitt talk about buying such a plant?

 

[JoeB131]

I'd like to see a "Free Trade" guy like Toro get on here and tell us how we are supposed to compete with this sort of nonsense...

 

[Dragonlady]

Wow. That sounds like Republican Policy. Didn't Mitt talk about buying such a plant?

Yes, the "emerging economies" in Asia have been pressured to adopt Chicago School free-market strategies by the World Bank and the IMF in return for loans and infrastructure investment. Especially unregulated prices and wages.

Reporters in Bangla Desh were told that North American companies have been asked by the workers for better prices so that working conditions in these factories can be improved. The North American companies have consistently refused these requests.

Wages are low and workers are often locked in the plant until the contract is completed. Competition for these contracts is fierce and the North American buyers will drop the contracts for any reason.

 

[depotoo]

fire has broken out in a collapsed factory building in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, hampering efforts to reach remaining survivors of a disaster that has killed 377 people.

The fire was reportedly started by sparks from cutters being used to free a female survivor. Four fire-fighters have been taken to hospital.

BBC News - Dhaka building collapse: Fire breaks out in wreckage

The factory owner has also been arrested.

 

[waltky]

Search moving from rescue to recovery operation

No more survivors likely in Bangladesh tragedy
Apr 29,`13 -- Rescue workers in Bangladesh have given up hopes of finding any more survivors in the rubble of a building that collapsed five days ago, and began using heavy machinery to remove the rubble and look for bodies, an official said Monday.

At least 380 people were killed when the illegally-constructed, 8-story Rana Plaza collapsed in a heap on Wednesday morning along with thousands of workers in the five garment factories in the building. About 2,500 survivors have been accounted for. The building owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, was arrested Sunday in the western border town of Benapole while he was trying to flee to India. The collapse was the deadliest disaster to hit the garment industry in Bangladesh that is worth $20 billion annually, supplies global retailers and is a mainstay of the economy.

Volunteers, army personnel and firemen have worked around the clock since Wednesday, mostly using hands and light equipment to pull out survivors. Around midnight Sunday, authorities deployed hydraulic cranes and heavy cutting machines to break up the massive slabs of concrete into manageable segments that could be lifted away. "We are proceeding cautiously. If there is still a soul alive, we will try to rescue that person," said army spokesman Shahinul Islam. "There is little hope of finding anyone alive. Our men went inside and saw some dead bodies in the ground floor. But no one was seen alive," said Brig. Gen. Ali Ahmed Khan, the chief of the fire brigade at the scene.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited the site and a nearby hospital to meet with survivors on Monday, the first time since the disaster. Hasina had ordered the arrest of building owner Rana, who is a small-time political operative from her Awami League party's youth wing. He was brought back by helicopter from the border town to the capital, Dhaka, where he is expected to be charged with negligence on Monday. He had permission to build a 5-story building but added three more illegally. He last appeared in public Tuesday in front of the Rana Plaza after huge cracks appeared in the building.

Witnesses said Rana assured tenants that the building was safe. Police, however, ordered an evacuation. A bank and some first-floor shops closed, but managers of the garment factories on the upper floors told workers to continue their shifts. Hours later, the Rana Plaza was reduced to rubble, crushing most victims under massive blocks of concrete.

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[Unkotare]

Really tough to hear about rescuers being forced back when a fire broke out, knowing there were people still alive inside who...wouldn't be.

 

[Franticfrank]

Terrible story. Especially when they noticed the cracks and were forced to go back inside again. Hope this will finally bring about some kind of change, though I doubt it...

 

[georgephillip]

If terrorism implies a willingness to use force or coercion against a civilian population to further social, political, (or economic) goals, the current "landscape of globalization" would likely disappear without corporate jihadis like those in Rana Plaza:

"These Bangladesh factories are a part of the landscape of globalization that is mimicked in the factories along the US-Mexico border, in Haiti, in Sri Lanka, and in other places that opened their doors to the garment industry’s savvy use of the new manufacturing and trade order of the 1990s..."

"The big garment producers no longer wanted to invest in factories – they turned to sub-contractors, offering them very narrow margins for profit and thereby forcing them to run their factories like prison-houses of labour."

The Terror of Capitalism » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

 

[Dragonlady]

No this isn't terrorism, it is unfettered capitalism. This is the world that Walmart has built. Incidentally, Walmart was one of the major customers of the collapsed building. This is the price that Third World workers pay for Walmart's price roll-backs.

 

[Katzndogz]

So, don't shop at Wal Mart. This is an internal problem in Bangladesh. It is their laws and building standards. It has nothing to do with us.

 

[Dugdale_Jukes]

Basically a nation that allows imports from manufacturers like that is no damn good, and its government is worse than no damn good.

 

[Dragonlady]

So, don't shop at Wal Mart. This is an internal problem in Bangladesh. It is their laws and building standards. It has nothing to do with us.

Yes, the typical right-wing response. The whole point of Walmart subcontracting the manufacturing to outfits like these is to distance themselves from the abuses they're funding. They can say "We didn't know". They don't want to know. They just want a cheap price.

It has EVERYTHING to do with us. The clothing made in this factory was all destined for the North American and European markets. Loblaws (owners of the Joe Fresh brand) in Canada, and Primark in the UK, both of whom were clients of this factory, have publically promised to compensate the workers and their families, and to work towards better conditions for garment workers.

Companies which sub-contract manufacturing are now being proactive, because this has opened people's eyes to the abuses these workers suffer daily in order to keep goods as cheap as possible.

 

[Katzndogz]

What makes you think it's that people don't know? That has nothing to do with it. They don't care. I don't care. It's none of my business how other countries choose to protect or not protect their labor force. If Bangladesh has to raise rates with a result of raising prices, these companies will find somewhere else to go. Which is as it SHOULD be. If a company wants to compensate these families for their losses, it is not my concern, nor the concern of any other customer.