An eight-storey block housing garment factories and a shopping center collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital on Wednesday, killing nearly 100 people and injuring hundreds more, officials 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. Television showed young women workers, some apparently semi-conscious, being pulled from the debris.
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.
“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 Zohra Begum a worker at one of the factories.
An official at a control room set up to provide information about the missing and injured said that 96 people were confirmed dead and more than 700 were injured.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment