161 dead in Bangladesh factory collapse

A Bangladeshi firefighter carries an injured garment worker. Picture: Getty Images

About 2,000 people have been rescued from the wreckage of the building in the Dhaka suburb of Savar, according to junior home affairs minister Shamsul Haque.

Workers trapped in the wreckage could be heard crying out for help as rescuers struggled to reach them.

The building housed a number of garment factories employing hundreds of people when it came tumbling down yesterday morning.

The disaster has reignited questions about often lethal conditions in the country’s clothing industry. It came less than five months after a factory fire killed 112 people and underscored the unsafe conditions faced by Bangladesh’s garment workers, who produce clothes for global brands.

Workers said they hesitated to enter the building yesterday because it had developed such large cracks a day earlier that it even drew the attention of local news channels. Hours later it collapsed.

Tens of thousands of people gathered at the site, weeping and searching for family members. Searchers worked through the night to get through the jumbled mess of concrete with drills or their bare hands, passing water and torches to those pinned inside the building.

Abdur Rahim, who worked on the fifth floor, said a factory manager gave assurances that the cracks in the building were no cause for concern, so employees went inside.

“After about an hour or so, the building collapsed suddenly,” Mr Rahim said. The next thing he remembers is regaining consciousness outside.

On a visit to the site, home minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir told reporters the building had violated construction codes and that “the culprits would be punished”.

Abdul Halim, an official with the engineering department in Savar, said the owner was originally allowed to construct a five-storey building but he added another three stories illegally.

• 161 dead, thousands injured

• Factory located in Savar, suburb of Bangladeshi capital Dhakar

Local police chief Mohammed Asaduzzaman said police and the government’s Capital Development Authority have filed separate cases of negligence against the building owner.

Habibur Rahman, police superintendent of Dhaka district, identified the owner as Mohammed Sohel Rana, a local leader of ruling Awami League’s youth front. Mr Rahman said police were also looking for the owners of the garment factories.

Among the textile businesses in the building were Phantom Apparels, New Wave Style , New Wave Bottoms and New Wave Brothers. According to its website, the New Wave companies make clothing for major brands including US retailers The Children’s Place and Dress Barn, Britain’s Primark, Spain’s Mango and Italy’s Benetton.

Primark confirmed that one of the suppliers it uses to produce some of its goods was located on the second floor of the building.

The firm said it was “shocked and deeply saddened by the appalling incident”, adding that it has been working with other retailers to review the country’s approach to factory standards and will push for this review to include building integrity.

Primark’s ethical trade team is working to collect information, assess which communities the workers come from and provide support “where possible”.

Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, which has an office in Dhaka, says his staff are investigating. He hopes his team, working with local workers’ groups, will be able to find out which brands were having their products made at the time of the collapse.

“You can’t trust many buildings in Bangladesh,” Mr Kernaghan said. “It’s so corrupt that you can buy off anybody and there won’t be any retribution.”

Sumi, a 25-year-old worker who goes by one name, said she was sewing jeans on the fifth floor with at least 400 others when the building fell.

“It collapsed all of a sudden,” she said. “No shaking, no indication. It just collapsed on us.”

She said she managed to reach a hole in the building where rescuers pulled her out.

Firefighters and soldiers with drilling machines and cranes worked with volunteers to search for survivors.