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Bangladesh factory fire kills eight; collapse toll tops 900
Members of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) inspect a factory belonging to Tung Hai Group, a large garment exporter, after a fire in Dhaka May 9, 2013.
REUTERS/Andrew Biraj
By Serajul Quadir and Ruma Paul
DHAKA | Thu May 9, 2013 2:41am EDT
(Reuters) - Eight people were killed when a fire swept through a clothing factory in Bangladesh, police and an industry association official said on Thursday, as the death toll from the collapse of another factory building two weeks ago climbed above 900.
The fire, in an industrial district of Dhaka, comes amid global attention on safety standards in Bangladesh's booming garment industry following the catastrophic collapse of Rana Plaza, on the outskirts of the city, in the world's deadliest industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984.
"It is not clear to us how the accident happened, but we are trying to find out the cause," Mohammad Atiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told Reuters.
On Wednesday the Bangladesh government said it had shut down 18 garment factories for safety reasons following the April 24 collapse of Rana Plaza, which housed five garment factories making clothes for Western brands. Six were cleared to re-open on Thursday after inspectors issued safety certificates.
Salvage teams were still pulling bodies from the rubble of the Rana Plaza complex in Savar, around 20 miles northwest of Dhaka, and on Thursday a spokesman at the army control room coordinating the operation said the number of people confirmed to have been killed had reached 912.
Roughly 2,500 people were rescued from the building, including many injured, but there is no official estimate of the numbers still missing.
The government has blamed the owners and builders of the eight-storey complex for using shoddy building materials, including substandard rods, bricks and cement, and not obtaining the necessary clearances.
Bangladesh's garment industry, which accounts for 80 percent of the poor South Asian country's exports, has seen a series of deadly accidents, including a fire in November that killed 112 people.
The latest fire, in an 11-storey building in the Mirpur industrial district, broke out at a factory belonging to the Tung Hai Group, a large garment exporter.
"The factory was closed and all the workers had left the premises an hour earlier," said fire service official Bhazan Sarker.
A fire service official and BGMEA president Islam said the Bangladeshi managing director of the company and a senior police officer were among the dead. The others killed were friends and personal staff of the factory boss, officials said.
Tung Hai Group says on its website that it has more than 1,000 employees and its customers include major Western retailers including Britain's Primark, and Inditex Group of Spain. It makes products including cardigans, jumpers and pyjamas.
Colleagues comfort a company official as he cries after a fire at a factory belonging to Tung Hai Group, a large garment exporter,
in Dhaka May 9, 2013. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj
A fire fighter works to control a fire at a factory belonging to Tung Hai Group, a large garment exporter, in Dhaka May 9, 2013.
REUTERS/Stringer
Eight die in Bangladesh garment factory fire as 18 more factories are closed down
From: AFP May 09, 2013 3:58PM
Victims died from "suffocation" local police said
18 other garment plants have been shut down
Death toll for Dhaka building collapse now 912
Workers stand outside an 11-story building that houses the Tung Hai Sweater Ltd. factory and apartments after a fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh, earlier today. Picture: AP Photo/Ismail Ferdous
AT least eight people were killed after a fire swept a garment making factory in the Bangladeshi capital police said.
The cause of the fire was not known but authorities said it broke out during the night on the third floor of an 11-storey building housing two garment factories in the capital's Darussalam district.
The owner of the Tung Hai sweater factory was among the victims, but there were no workers among the casualties as there was no overnight production, police and fire service officials said.
"It was a big fire but we managed to confine it on one floor," Mahbubur Rahman, operations director of the nation's fire service department said.
He said the victims died of suffocation after rushing into a stairwell and becoming overwhelmed by "toxic smoke from burnt acrylic clothing".
At least seven people have died in a fire at a garment factory in Bangladesh as the death toll from the recent factory building collapse hits 800. Picture: AP Photo/Ismail Ferdous
Local police chief Khalilur Rahman said the fire killed "eight people including the owner, his four staff, a senior police officer, and a low-level police official".
"We have identities of seven people. But we have not identified the eighth," he added.
The fire comes as recovery teams are still finding bodies in the ruins of the nine-storey Rana Plaza garment factory complex that caved in on April 24 while some 3000 workers were on shift, 912 people have been found dead in the ruins.
Bangladesh has since shut down 18 garment plants to prevent a repeat of the factory collapse tragedy.
The announcement of the closures came days after Bangladesh agreed with the International Labour Organization to give safety "the highest consideration" amid fears that Western garment firms might start sourcing goods from elsewhere.
"Sixteen factories have been closed down in Dhaka and two in Chittagong," textiles minister Abdul Latif Siddique told reporters in the capital, adding that more plants would be shut as part of strict new measures to ensure safety.
"We'll ensure ILO standards in terms of compliance," said Siddique, who heads a newly created high-powered panel to inspect the impoverished country's 4,500 garment factories in an effort to avoid fresh disasters.
"We have seen that those who claim to be the best compliant factories in Bangladesh have not fully abided by building regulations."
The death toll from Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster hit 912 earlier today.
Brigadier General Siddiqul Alam Sikder told AFP the stench of bodies trapped in the lower floors and under beams indicated the toll would rise as cranes and bulldozers kept clearing debris.
"We're expecting to find some bodies because we still haven't reached the bottom. We've finished around 70 per cent of the job," Sikder said.
Workers drawn from the army and fire service wore masks to ward off the smell as they continued to pull bodies from the rubble of the nine-storey building in the town of Savar, a suburb of Dhaka.
More than 3,000 garment workers were on shift on April 24 when the Rana Plaza complex crumbled as they were turning out clothing for Western retailers such as Britain's Primark and the Spanish label Mango.
A total of 2,437 people were rescued from the ruins, authorities say.
Efforts to identify bodies were being hampered by their decomposition, officials said, adding that relief workers were taking DNA samples from the victims to match with relatives.
Many bodies have been found in the staircases. Panicked workers had raced to stairwells in a rush to get out of the building after hearing a loud noise but the compound collapsed within five minutes, trapping them, officials said.
The disaster was the latest in a string of deadly accidents to hit the nation's textile industry. In November, a factory fire killed 111 garment workers.
The government at the weekend in a joint statement with the ILO and factory owners promised a labour law reform package that would allow "the right to collective bargaining" and provide for "occupational safety and health".
A United Nations expert group Wednesday urged international clothing brands not to pull out of the country but to work together with the government, international organisations, and civil society to address working conditions.
Pavel Sulyandziga, who heads the UN working group on business and human rights, said if companies are "linked with negative impacts on human rights through their suppliers, they have the responsibility to exercise their leverage as buyers to try to effect change".
A preliminary government investigation blamed the collapse on the vibrations of giant electricity generators and police have arrested 12 people including the complex's owner and four garment factory owners in connection with the disaster.
Impoverished Bangladesh is the world's second-largest garment exporter and the industry accounts for more than 40 per cent of its industrial workforce and 80 per cent of the nation's exports.
