[The collapse followed a
fire in November that killed 112 workers making shorts and sweaters for export
and that led importers, including Walmart, to vow to do more to ensure the
safety of factories where goods they sell are manufactured. The building
collapse on Wednesday quickly revived questions about the commitment of local
factory owners, Bangladeshi officials and global brands to provide safe working
conditions.]
By Julfikar Ali Manik and Jim Yardley
 |
A.M. Ahad/Associated Press
Inspectors found cracks in the building’s structure
the day before
it collapsed, local news reports said. More Photos »
|
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Search crews on Thursday clawed through the wreckage of a
collapsed building that housed several factories making clothing for European
and American consumers, with the death toll rising to at least 194 with many
others still unaccounted for.
The collapse of the Rana
Plaza building in Savar, an industrial suburb of Dhaka, the capital, came only
five months after a horrific fire at a similar facility prompted leading
multinational brands to pledge to work to improve safety in the country’s
booming but poorly regulated garment industry.
By early Thursday,
police officials reported that more than 1,000 of the 2,500 workers were
injured, with many of them still trapped. Soldiers, paramilitary police
officers, firefighters and other citizens were enlisted in the search for
survivors and bodies.
Brig. Gen. Ali Ahmed
Khan, head of the National Fire Service, said that an initial investigation
found that the Rana Plaza building violated codes, with the four upper floors
having been constructed illegally without permits.
“There was a structural
fault as well,” General Khan added, noting that the building’s foundation was
substandard.
The collapse followed a
fire in November that killed 112 workers making shorts and sweaters for export
and that led importers, including Walmart, to vow to do more to ensure the
safety of factories where goods they sell are manufactured. The building
collapse on Wednesday quickly revived questions about the commitment of local
factory owners, Bangladeshi officials and global brands to provide safe working
conditions.
The Bangladeshi news
media reported that inspection teams had discovered cracks in the structure of
Rana Plaza on Tuesday. Shops and a bank branch on the lower floors immediately
closed. But the owners of the garment factories on the upper floors ordered
employees to work on Wednesday, despite the safety risks.
Labor activists combed
the wreckage on Wednesday afternoon and discovered labels and production
records suggesting that the factories were producing garments for major
European and American brands. Labels were discovered for the Spanish brand
Mango, and for the low-cost British chain Primark.
Activists said the
factories also had produced clothing for Walmart, the Dutch retailer C & A,
Benetton and Cato Fashions, according to customs records, factory Web sites and
documents discovered in the collapsed building.
Survivors described a
sensation akin to being in an earthquake: hearing a loud and terrifying
cracking sound; feeling the concrete factory floor roll beneath their feet; and
watching concrete beams and pillars collapse as the eight-story building
suddenly seemed to implode.
“I heard screams,” said
Mahmudul Hasan, a quality inspector at Ether Tex, a garment factory, who was
hit by a falling ceiling. “My heart started pounding. I lay down near a pillar
and started thinking that perhaps I was going to die.”
International attention
was focused on labor conditions in Bangladesh five months ago, with the fatal
fire at Tazreen Fashions, a garment factory near Dhaka. That fire brought
pledges from government officials and many global companies to tighten safety
standards.
But on Wednesday, many
labor rights advocates said the collapse of Rana Plaza showed a continued
failure to take meaningful action.
“The front-line
responsibility is the government’s, but the real power lies with Western brands
and retailers, beginning with the biggest players: Walmart, H & M, Inditex,
Gap and others,” said Scott Nova, executive director of Worker Rights Consortium, a labor rights
organization. “The price pressure these buyers put on factories undermines any
prospect that factories will undertake the costly repairs and renovations that
are necessary to make these buildings safe.”
Bangladesh is the
world’s second-leading garment exporter, trailing only China, but the industry
has been plagued by concerns over safety and angry protests over rock-bottom
wages. The industry has grown rapidly in the past decade, particularly as
rising wages in China have pushed many global clothing companies to look for
lower costs elsewhere. Bangladesh has the lowest labor costs in the world, with
the minimum wage for garment workers set at roughly $37 a month.
Such low labor costs
have attracted not just Walmart but almost every major global clothing company,
including Sears, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger and many others. Bangladesh now has more
than 5,000 garment factories, employing more than 3.2 million workers, many of
them women, and advocates credit the industry for lifting people out of
poverty, even with such low wages. Exports also provide a critical source of
foreign exchange that helps the government offset the high costs of imported
oil.
But critics have argued
that the outsize importance of the industry has made the government reluctant
to take steps that could increase costs or alienate foreign brands. Labor
unions are almost nonexistent, and a labor organizer, Aminul Islam, was tortured and
murdered last year. The case remains unsolved. Meanwhile, some
factory owners say they cannot raise wages or invest in upgrading facilities
because of the low prices paid by Western brands.
Poorly constructed
buildings have long been a problem in Bangladesh. In 2005, at least 64 workers
at Spectrum Garments were killed in a building collapse. Alonzo Suson, who runs
an A.F.L.-C.I.O. training center in Dhaka known as the Solidarity Center, said
Wednesday’s accident illustrated the repeated failure of government inspectors
to ensure that safety standards and building codes are met.
“It is substandard
construction, shortcut construction,” Mr. Suson said. “There was already a
crack in the building.”
On Wednesday, a spokesman
for Walmart expressed sympathy for the victims and said the global retail giant
was committed to promoting stronger safety measures. “We are investigating
across our global supply chain to see if a factory in this building was
currently producing for Walmart,” said Kevin Gardner, the company spokesman.
One problem exposed in
the Tazreen Fashions fire was the opacity of the global supply chain for
clothing. The Tazreen factory was making apparel for Walmart and Sears, but
after the fire both retailers said they had not known that and accused their
suppliers of secretly subcontracting the jobs.
Inside Rana Plaza, labor
activists discovered a document detailing cutting specifications for an order
from Benetton. Yet Luca Biondolillo, a spokesman for the Benetton Group, denied
any connection to the factories in the building. “None of the companies
involved are currently suppliers of Benetton Group or any of its brands,” Mr.
Biondolillo said.
The Bangladeshi prime
minister, Sheikh Hasina, announced that Thursday would be a national day of
mourning. Ms. Hasina, leader of the governing Awami League, could face
political fallout from the accident. Rana Plaza is owned by a political figure
affiliated with the Awami League.
Mr. Hasan, the quality
inspector who survived the collapse, recalled a chaotic scene in which the dust
was so thick that he struggled to breathe.
“I found some other
colleagues around me when they were using the light of their mobile phones,” he
said. “We were all trapped. So we had to crawl to look for space to escape.
“We were screaming,
shouting, saying, ‘Save me! I am here!’ ”