Deadly building collapse in Bangladesh .....deaths hit 640

An eight-storey block housing factories and a shopping centre collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital on Wednesday, killing more than 640 people and injuring 2000, a government official said.

Fire fighters and army personnel worked frantically through the morning at the Rana Plaza building in Savar, 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka, to rescue people trapped inside.

One fireman told  that about more than 6000 people were in the building when the upper floors jolted down on top of each other.

"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 of those still inside.

"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 Sohra Begum a worker at one of the garment factories.

The Rana Plaza was owned by a person who is a local kingpin of the ruling party and how such a person came to own such wealth is another matter but there is no confusion that he could build a death trap with impunity. He was told by the engineers that this building was not stable at all and had developed cracks which pointed to a major fault in the structure. He swished away the observations saying that they were ‘just cracks in the concrete’. The garments factory owners with over 6000 workers were also told to shut the factories down as the building was unsafe. Nobody bothered and the very next day, the building collapsed.

Director of the Industrial Police Mostafizur Rahman has said that, “The Industrial Police had asked the owners of the factories to suspend operations after cracks were noticed.” “But the factories owners had ignored our directives and decided to open their units on Wednesday”.