|
| A woman is comforted as she grieves after identifying the body of her daughter, a victim of the garment factory collapse, Sunday, May 5, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The death toll from the collapse of a shoddily built garment-factory building in Bangladesh continued its horrifying climb, reaching 580 on Sunday with little sign of what the final number will be. The disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind with a higher death toll. |
DHAKA, Bangladesh
(AP) -- More than 600 bodies have been recovered from the
garment-factory building that collapsed well over a week ago, police
said Sunday as the grim recovery work continued in one of the worst
industrial accidents ever.
Police said Sunday
night that the death toll had reached 622. Well over 200 bodies have
been recovered since Wednesday, when authorities said only 149 people
had been listed as missing. The stench of decomposing bodies remains
amid the broken concrete of the eight-story Rana Plaza building, and it
is anyone's guess how many victims remain to be recovered.
The
April 24 disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever,
and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind with a higher
death toll. It surpassed long-ago garment-industry disasters such as New
York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, which killed 146 workers in
1911, and more recent tragedies such as a 2012 fire that killed about
260 people in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh that same year that killed
112.
An architect whose firm designed the
building said Sunday that it had not been designed to handle heavy
industrial equipment, let alone the three floors that were later
illegally added. The equipment used by the five garment factories that
occupied Rana Plaza included huge generators that were turned on shortly
before the building crumbled.
Masood Reza, an
architect with Vastukalpa Consultants, said the building was designed
in 2004 as a shopping mall and not for any industrial purpose.
"We
designed the building to have three stories for shops and another two
for offices. I don't know how the additional floors were added and how
factories were allowed on the top floors," Reza said.
"Don't ask me anything else. This is now a sensitive issue," Reza said before hanging up.
Government
officials say substandard building materials, combined with the
vibration of the heavy machines used by the factories, led to the
collapse.
The building developed cracks a day
before the collapse and the owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, called engineer
Abdur Razzak Khan to inspect it. Khan appeared on television that night
and said he told Rana the building should be evacuated.
Police
also issued an evacuation order, but witnesses say that hours before
the collapse, Rana told people that the building was safe and garment
factory managers told their workers to go inside.
Rana
has been arrested is expected to be charged with negligence, illegal
construction and forcing workers to join work, crimes punishable by a
maximum of seven years in jail. Authorities have not said if more
serious crimes will be added.
Khan was arrested as well. Police said he worked as a consultant to Rana when the three illegal floors were added.
The
government promised to make the garment industry safer after the
November garment factory fire that killed 112 people, saying it would
inspect factories for safety and pull the licenses of those that failed.
That plan has yet to be implemented.
Bangladesh's
$20 billion garment industry supplies retailers around the world and
accounts for about 80 percent of the impoverished country's exports. The
collapse has raised strong doubts about retailers' claims that they
could ensure worker safety through self-regulation.
Bangladesh
is popular as a source of clothing largely because of its cheap labor.
The minimum wage for a garment worker is $38 a month, after being nearly
doubled this year following violent protests by workers. According to
the World Bank, the per capita income in Bangladesh was about $64 a
month in 2011.
The European Union has said it
could restrict Bangladesh's access to its crucial market if it fails to
ensure that basic labor standards are enforced.
"We
are going to make it very clear to the Bangladeshi government that they
have to take immediate action with a precise timeline," EU Trade
Commissioner Karel de Gucht told Sky News. Otherwise, he said, the EU
will conduct an investigation that could lead to trade restrictions.
"Not
because we want to hurt Bangladesh, but because what is happening is
simply not acceptable," he said.
"From a humane point of view, we cannot
afford that and we have to do something about it."
