Bangladesh Disaster: Female Survivor Found 17 Days Later

17 days after the Bangladesh tragedy that saw the death toll rise over 1,000 people, police and military officials said they have rescued a woman from the rubble of the garment factory building.

Reshma Begum, a seamstress who was working on the third floor of the factory,cried out for help as the rescuers continued to search the rubble for survivors days after the collapse.

Army engineers pulled her from the basement of the building after a workman helping to clear the wreckage reported hearing her faint cries for help from beneath the ruins.

"I heard the sound and rushed towards the spot. I knelt down and heard a faint voice. Sir, please help, she cried," Abdur Razzaq, an army sergeant told Guardian.

He said that Begum has been hitting the concrete with the pipe to alert approaching rescue workers and he heard the sound after the bulldozers lifted loose rubble that had been covering the spot.

He added that she had stayed alive on biscuits in the rucksacks of dead colleagues and drinking rainwater.

There were loud cheers from hundreds of onlookers as she was removed and taken to a military hospital.

"It is incredible that someone could have survived in the wreckage 408 hours after the building came down. Her will to live is amazing. We've given her oxygen and she has been rushed to hospital," Lieutenant Shah Jamal told reorters.

So far, more than 2,500 people have been rescued in the aftermath of the collapse, with about a thousand of them suffering very serious injuries as some of the survivors had to be rescued by severing their limbs trapped under the rubble.

About nine people have been arrested in connection with the tragedy, while Primark and Canadian-owned Loblaw have said that they will compensate victims of the disaster,  the worst disaster that has ever plagued the country.

Only in November, 114 people were killed in  a garment factory fire, while there have been 8 deaths earlier this week from a similar garment factory fire.

Fire at Bangladesh Collapse Halts Rescue Effort

There was a fire outbreak late Sunday in the wreckage of the Bangladesh 8-storey garment factory that collapsed days ago.

According to the reports by rescuers, there was smoke sipping out from a pile of shattered concrete, which forced the rescuers to temporarily stop their efforts, while hundreds of people are still trapped beneath the rubble.

Syed al-Amin Roman, a volunteer rescuer, said that the flames suddenly broke out when sparks were generated by those rescuers trying to cut through a steel rod to reach a woman.

Firefighters reported to the scene to put out the flames as the rescuers retreated from the area. Brig. Gen. Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder, who is overseeing the rescue operations, said that they will be able to control it, hopefully.

The incident occurred only a few hours after Mohammed Sohel Rana, owner of the illegally-constructed building, was arrested in Benapole in western Bangladesh as he was about to flee into Bengal state, west India.

He has being brought back to Bangladesh to face a court trial for negligence.

Bangladesh Building Collapse: Factory Owners Arrested

According to the Bangladesh police, three arrests have been made over the garment factory disaster that has killed more than 300 people, as the death toll rises to 324.

Bazlus Samad Adrian and Mahbubur Rahman Tapas are suspected of negligence, forcing their staff to work in the building, ignoring warnings about the cracks.

Deputy Police Chief Shyamal Mukherjee told AFP news agency, ‘‘We’ve arrested Bazlus Samad, the chairman of New Wave Buttons and New Wave Style factories, and Mahmudur Rahaman Tapash, a managing director of one of these plants, after midnight.’’  

Hopes of relatives were raised when 45 more people were rescued from the rubble on Thursday night, and 15 more were pulled out of the debris of the eight-storey building in the commercial suburb of Savar Saturday morning.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told lawmakers, ‘‘those who are involved, especially the owner who forced the workers to work there, will be punished.’’

He added, ‘‘wherever he is, he will be found and brought to justice.’’

Bangladesh garment industries, the largest in the world, have been widely criticized for its low pay, limited civil rights, and the hazardous working conditions the workers have to contend with.

The disaster has called for new criticism of Western companies who were accused by activists of placing profit before safety by sourcing their products from the country regardless of the deadly disasters plaguing it.

British-owned Primark fashion line and Spanish giant Mango, have admitted that their suppliers were running their business in the collapsed building, and have agreed to work towards reviewing standards.

Wal-Mart and France’s Carrefour are still investigating. Italy’s Benetton has denied having links to the building, even as evidence of their involvement with suppliers was found in documents by activists.

Gareth Price-Jones, Oxfam’s country director for Bangladesh told Reuters, ‘‘these are billion-dollar companies. They have huge amount of power to change the way that building safety is accepted here.’’

Human Rights Watch, having analyzed the tragedy, said that reforms should include a drastic overhaul of the government’s system of labor inspections and an end to government efforts to thwart the right of workers to unionize.

In a statement published on the group’s website, Asia director of HRW Brian Adams said, ‘‘given the long record of worker deaths in factories, this tragedy was sadly predictable.’’