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| A Bangladeshi rescuer works to break through metal and concrete with a drill at the site of a building that collapsed Wednesday in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, April 26, 2013. More than two days after their factory collapsed on them, at least some garment workers were still alive in the corpse-littered debris Friday, pinned beneath tons of mangled metal and concrete. The death toll topped 300 on Friday and it remained unclear what the final grim number would be, as some victims are being pulled from the rubble alive. |
SAVAR, Bangladesh
(AP) -- 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.
An
AP cameraman who accompanied a rescue crew Thursday heard the anguished
cries for help from two men - one half-buried under a slab beside two
corpses, the other entombed deep in the rubble. The first man later died
and the second had not been heard from for hours and is presumed dead,
rescuers said.
Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan
Suhrawardy told reporters that search-and-rescue operations would
continue until at least Saturday, because "we know a human being can
survive for up to 72 hours in this situation."
Forty
people had been trapped on the fourth floor of the building until
rescuers reached them Thursday evening. Twelve were soon freed, and
crews worked to get the rest out safely, Shikder said. Crowds burst into
applause as survivors were brought out.
Police
cordoned off the site, pushing back thousands of bystanders and
relatives after rescue workers complained the crowds were hampering
their work.
Clashes broke out between the
relatives and police, who used batons to disperse them. Police said 50
people were injured in the skirmishes.
"We
want to go inside the building and find our people now. They will die if
we don't find them soon," said Shahinur Rahman, whose mother was
missing.
Thousands of workers from the
hundreds of garment factories across the Savar industrial zone and other
nearby areas marched elsewhere to protest the poor safety standards in
Bangladesh. Local news reports said demonstrators smashed dozens of cars
Friday, although most of the protests were largely peaceful.
Police
say cracks in the Rana Plaza had led them to order an evacuation
Tuesday, but the factories ignored the order and were operating when the
building collapsed the next day. Video before the collapse shows cracks
in walls, with apparent attempts at repair. It also shows columns
missing chunks of concrete and police talking to building operators.
Officials said soon after the collapse that numerous construction regulations had been violated.
Abdul
Halim, an official with Savar's engineering department, said the owner
of Rana Plaza was allowed to erect a five-story building but had added
another three stories illegally.
Mahbubul
Haque Shakil, a spokesman for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said she had
ordered police to arrest the building's owner as well as the owners of
the garment factories in "the shortest possible time."
Police
chief Mohammed Asaduzzaman said police and the government's Capital
Development Authority have filed negligence cases against the building
owner, identified as Mohammed Sohel Rana.
Habibur
Rahman, police superintendent of Dhaka district, said Rana was a local
leader of ruling Awami League's youth front. Rahman said police were
also looking for the owners of the garment factories.
Two of Rana's relatives were detained for questioning, police officer Mohammad Kawser said.
The
disaster is the worst ever for the country's booming and powerful
garment industry, surpassing a fire five months ago that killed 112
people and brought widespread pledges to improve worker-safety
standards. Since then, very little has changed in Bangladesh, where low
wages have made it a magnet for numerous global brands.
Bangladesh's
garment industry was the third-largest in the world in 2011, after
China and Italy, having grown rapidly in the past decade. The country's
minimum wage is now the equivalent of about $38 a month.
Among
the garment makers in the building were Phantom Apparels, Phantom Tac,
Ether Tex, New Wave Style and New Wave Bottoms. Altogether, they
produced several million shirts, pants and other garments a year.
The New Wave companies, according to their website, make clothing for several major North American and European retailers.
Britain's
Primark acknowledged it was using a factory in Rana Plaza, but many
other retailers distanced themselves from the disaster, saying they were
not involved with the factories at the time of the collapse or had not
recently ordered garments from them.
Wal-Mart
said none of its clothing had been authorized to be made in the
facility, but it is investigating whether there was any unauthorized
production.
U.S. State Department spokesman
Patrick Ventrell said the collapse underscored the urgency for
Bangladesh's government, as well as the factory owners, buyers and labor
groups, to improve working conditions in the country.
Human
Rights Watch says Bangladesh's Ministry of Labor has only 18 inspectors
to monitor thousands of garment factories in the Dhaka district, where
much of the nation's garment industry is located.
John
Sifton, the group's Asia advocacy director, also noted that none of the
factories in the Rana Plaza were unionized, and that had they been,
workers would have been in a better position to refuse to enter the
building Wednesday.
