DHAKA, Bangladesh - Dozens of bodies recovered Wednesday from a collapsed garment factory building were so decomposed they were being sent to a lab for DNA identification, police said, as the death toll from Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster topped 800.
Also Wednesday, a fire at a different garment factory in Dhaka killed at least eight people. The fire broke out overnight at Tung Hai Sweaters Ltd., said Nazrul Islam, a spokesman for the Bangladesh Fire Service. The factory was closed for the night and there were no workers inside, but the company’s executives were having a meeting, police said.
Tung Hai Sweater’s managing director Mahbubur Rahman was among those killed, Appolo Hospitals manager Mafizul Islam said.
The European Union’s delegation to Bangladesh urged the government Wednesday to “act immediately” to improve working conditions. Authorities said the government has closed 18 garment factories in recent days for failing to meet work and safety standards.
Police said 803 bodies had been recovered from the wreckage of the eight-story Rana Plaza building by late afternoon and more were expected as salvage work continued two weeks after the April 24 collapse.
There is no clear indication of how many bodies still remain trapped in the debris, because the exact number of people inside the building at the time of the collapse is unknown. More than 2,500 people were rescued.
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association earlier said 3,122 workers were employed at the five factories housed in the building, but it was not clear how many were there during the packed morning shift when it collapsed. Several stores and a bank were also in the building.
Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, a top military official in the area, said the operation to recover bodies from the tangle of wreckage could continue for two to three more days before the local administration would be asked to take care of the site.
Suhrawardy said 36 decomposing bodies were sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital to collect DNA samples because they were beyond identification. Authorities expected to send more bodies for testing in the coming days, with temperatures in the high 80s Fahrenheit and rain pouring down.
Meanwhile, after hundreds of garment workers protested for compensation Tuesday, authorities started disbursing salaries and other benefits.
About 2,000 people gathered at a military athletic field in Savar on Wednesday to receive their salaries, but the process was slow because many had no identity cards, said Faruk Hossain, an inspector for the Industrial Police.
He said factory supervisors were helping to identify workers who did not have ID cards or other proof that they were employed by the five factories.
The workers, many of whom made little more than the national minimum wage of about $38 per month, are demanding at least four months’ salary. They had set Tuesday as a deadline for the payment of wages and other benefits.
Bangladesh earns nearly $20 billion a year from exports of garment products, mainly to the United States and Europe.
William Hanna, head of the EU delegation in Bangladesh, said at a news conference Wednesday that the EU would help Bangladesh ensure safe working conditions.
Abdul Latif Siddiqui, head of special Cabinet committee to inspect garment factories that was formed days after the Rana Plaza collapse, said at a separate news conference that the government had closed 16 factories in the Dhaka area and two in Chittagong in the past few days for substandard working and safety conditions. He did not say whether the closures were temporary or permanent.
Officials have said the owner of Rana Plaza illegally added three floors and allowed the garment factories to install heavy machines and generators, even though the structure was not designed to support such equipment.
The building owner and eight other people, including the owners of the garment factories in the building, have been detained.
Information for this article was contributed by Arun Devnath of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 05/09/2013