The incident of collapse of eight-story commercial building Rana Plaza has been widely covered in the international media. The Daily Telegraph, a leading daily of the United Kingdom said, ‘The website for one of the Bangladeshi garment factory companies, New Wave, which occupied three of the floors of Rana Plaza in Dhaka’s Savar district, indicates that at least half of those dead and injured were women and that many children may also be among the victims. The company provides crèche facilities for the children of its female workers on the 2nd, 6th and 7th floors of the building’ it added.
The implosion follows the fire at another Dhaka clothing factory building in November in which 112 people died and raises further questions over safety and working standards in the country’s £13 billion garment industry which supplies many high street clothing brands in Britain and the United States. One of the factories in the building lists Benetton and Monsoon as clients.
News agency Reuters said, fire fighters and army personnel worked frantically through the day at the Rana Plaza building in Savar, 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka, to rescue people trapped in the rubble.
One fireman told Reuters that about 2,000 people were in the building when the upper floors jolted down on top of each other.
Bangladesh’s booming garment industry has been plagued by fires and other accidents for years, despite a drive to improve safety standards. In November last year, 112 workers were killed in a blaze at the Tazreen factory in a nearby industrial suburb.
Mohammad Asaduzzaman, in charge of the area’s police station, said factory owners appeared to have ignored a warning not to allow their workers into the building after a crack was detected in the block on Tuesday.
An AP report said, less than five months after a factory fire killed 112 people, the disaster again underscored the unsafe conditions in Bangladesh’s massive garment industry. Workers said they hesitated to go to work Wednesday because the building had developed such severe cracks the previous day that it had been reported on local news channels.
An enormous section of the concrete structure appeared to have splintered like twigs. Colorful sheets of fabric were tied to upper floors of the wreckage so those inside could climb or slide down and escape.
An arm jutted out of one section of rubble. The lifeless body of a woman covered in dust could be seen in another. A fire-fighter carried the body of what appeared to be a teenager from the area.
At the morgue of the medical college, many wailed as they waited for the bodies of their loved ones. “Where’s my mother? Where’s my mother? Tell me, tell me, oh Allah, oh Allah,” Rana Ahmed cried.
BBC reported that frantic efforts were under way to rescue those beneath the debris. Hundreds of people were injured by the collapse.
The army is helping with the rescue operation in the Savar area.
Dhaka resident Tahsin Mahmoo described the scene as looking like a “war zone” to the BBC, adding that appeals had been put out for citizens to donate blood.
Rescue workers are using concrete cutters and cranes to dig through the rubble, the BBC’s Anbarasan Ethirajan in Dhaka reports.
“Already we’ve rescued three to four hundred people… Now we are cutting through the concrete walls and trying to get inside with the help of sniffer dogs,” fire brigade chief Ali Ahmed Khan told the BBC Bengali service.
An eyewitness described the moment of the building’s collapse: “It became completely dark on this side. There was a lot of dust from the collapsing debris, so we ran downstairs. When we came out we saw the whole building collapsed.”
Only the ground floor of the Rana Plaza in Sava remained intact after the collapse, officials said.
Quoting officials, the Voice of America said, emergency personnel continue to dig through the rubble at the Rana Plaza shopping center in Savar to find people who remain trapped in the debris.
‘Buildings in and around Dhaka often do not comply with construction regulations. Dozens of people died when a garment factory collapsed in the same area eight years ago’ it added.
About the post collapse scene of the spot, Al Jazeera said, it is a scene of complete mayhem and chaos, hundreds of people are trapped under the rubble and a still being pulled out.
PTI reported that the eight-storey commercial building housed three garments units, a bank branch and around three hundred shops.
Locals said around 6,000 workers used to work in the factories located in the building. Director of the Industrial Police Mostafizur Rahman blamed the garment factory owners for the collapse tragedy.
-With The Independent input
