SAVAR, Bangladesh - Rescuers tried to free people believed trapped in the concrete rubble of a building housing mainly garment factories that collapsed in Bangladesh a day after workers complained cracks had developed in the structure. The death toll jumped today to 149 after searchers worked through the night.
“Many” people are still trapped, the rescue operations leader, army Brig. Gen. Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder said this morning. A clearer picture of the rescue operation would be available by afternoon he said.
Searchers opened holes in the jumbled mess of concrete with drills or their bare hands, passing water and flashlights to those pinned inside the building near Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka.
“I gave them whistles, water, torch lights. I heard them cry. We can’t leave them behind this way,” said fire official Abul Khayer. Rescue operations illuminated by floodlights continued through the night.
The disaster came less than five months after a factory fire killed 112 people and underscored the unsafe conditions in Bangladesh’s garment industry.
Workers said they had hesitated to go to into the building Wednesday morning because it had developed such large cracks a day earlier that it even drew the attention of local news channels.
Abdur Rahim, who worked on the fifth floor, said a factory manager gave assurances that there was no problem, so employees went inside.
“After about an hour or so, the building collapsed suddenly,” Rahim said. He next remembered regaining consciousness outside.
On a visit to the site, Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir told reporters the building had violated construction codes and “the culprits would be punished.”
Abdul Halim, an official with the engineering department in the Dhaka suburb of Savar, said the owner was originally allowed to construct a five-story building but he added three stories illegally.
Local Police Chief Mohammaed 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 the ruling Awami League’s youth front. Rahman said police also were looking for the owners of the garment factories.
Among the textile businesses in the building were Phantom Apparels Ltd., New Wave Style Ltd., New Wave Bottoms Ltd. and New Wave Brothers Ltd., which make clothing for major brands including The Children’s Place, Dress Barn and Primark.
Jane Singer, a spokesman for The Children’s Place, said that “while one of the garment factories located in the building complex has produced apparel for The Children’s Place, none of our product was in production at the time of this accident.”
“Our deepest sympathies go out to the victims of this terrible tragedy and their families,”Singer said in a statement.
Dress Barn said that to its knowledge, it had “not purchased any clothing from that facility since 2010. We work with suppliers around the world to manufacture our clothing, and have a supply chain transparency program to protect the rights of workers and their safety.”
Primark, a major British clothing retailer, confirmed that one of the suppliers it uses to produce some of its goods was on the second floor of the building.
In a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press, Primark said it was “shocked and deeply saddened by the appalling incident.” It added that it has been working with other retailers to review the country’s approach to factory standards and will now push for this review to include building integrity.
Meanwhile, Primark’s ethical trade team is working to collect information, assess which communities the workers come from, and to provide support “where possible.”
John Howe, Cato’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, told The Associated Press that it didn’t contract with any of the factories directly but it’s currently investigating what its “ties” were.
Howe said that one of Cato’s domestic importers could have used one of the factories to fulfill some of the orders the retailer had placed. It’s expected to have more information today.
Spanish retailer Mango denied reports it was using any of the suppliers in the building.However, in an e-mail statement to the AP, it said that there had been conversations with one of them to produce a batch of test products.
Kevin Gardner, a spokesman at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the second-largest clothing producer in Bangladesh, said the company is investigating to see if a factory in the building was currently producing for the chain.
“We remain committed and are actively engaged in promoting stronger safety measures, and that work continues,” Gardner added.
Workers said they didn’t know what specific clothing brands were being produced in the building because labels are attached after the products are finished.
Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights, which has an office in nearby Dhaka, said his staff is investigating the situation. He’s hoping 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, he said.
“You can’t trust many buildings in Bangladesh,” 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.
Most of the fatalities were women working in the building’s four garment factories, said Bharat Chandra Biswas, an official of the Fire Service and Civil Defense Department.
Reports suggested the death toll was likely to rise.
Tens of thousands of people gathered at the site, weeping and searching for family members. Firefighters and soldiers with drilling machines and cranes worked with volunteers to search for survivors.
An enormous section of the concrete structure appeared to have splintered like twigs. Colorful sheets of fabric were tied to upper floors so those inside could climb or slide down and escape.
Rescuers carried the body of a young boy from the building, but it was not immediately clear what he had been doing inside. The building housed a bank and various shops in addition to the garment factories.
Zahidur Rahman, a spokesman for Enam Medical College and Hospital, said Wednesday evening that 87 people had been confirmed dead. Shikder said 600 people had been rescued.
Alonzo Suson, country director for the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, a labor-rights group, said Wednesday’s accident illustrated the repeated failure of government inspectors to ensure that safety standards were met.
“It is substandard construction, shortcut construction,” Suson said. “There was already a crack in the building.”
The November fire at the Tazreen garment factory drew international attention to working conditions in Bangladesh’s $20 billion-a-year textile industry. The country has about 4,000 garment factories and exports clothes to leading Western retailers. The industry wields vast power in the South Asian nation.
Tazreen lacked emergency exits, and its owner said only three floors of the eight-story building were legally built. Surviving employees said gates had been locked and managers had told them to go back to work after the fire alarm went off.
Surging wages and inflation in China, the largest apparel supplier, have prompted retailers to shift production to Bangladesh. In response, an $18 billion manufacturing industry has sprung up, marred by factories operated in buildings with poor electrical wiring, insufficient number of exits and little firefighting equipment.
Industry proponents say the garment industry has been an essential engine for the Bangladeshi economy, lifting millions of people, particularly women, out of abject poverty, even with such low wages. Today, garments represent about 80 percent of Bangladesh’s manufacturing exports and provide a critical source of foreign exchange that the government needs to help offset the high costs of imported oil.
However, 50 percent of the Bangladesh’s garment factories don’t meet legally required work-safety standards and those that have improved working conditions have done so under pressure from Western apparel makers, said Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, a nongovernmental organization founded by two former child workers to promote safer garment factories.
Bangladesh’s labor law requires safety measures such as fire extinguishers and easily accessible exits at factories.
Information for this article was contributed by Julhas Alama and Anne D’Innocenzio of The Associated Press; Arun Devnath and Arijit Ghosh of Bloomberg News; by Jim Yardley and Gerry Mullany of The New York Times; and by Nazrul Islam of the Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/25/2013