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Saturday, April 27, 2013

Factory owners arrested over Bangladesh building collapse

The Punch - Nigeria's Most Widely Read Newspaper
Breaking News, information and opinion in Nigeria
Factory owners arrested over Bangladesh building collapse
Apr 27th 2013, 23:27

Two owners of garment factories in the building that collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka have been arrested.

Mahbubur Rahman Tapas and Balzul Samad Adnan are suspected of forcing staff to work in the eight-storey building, ignoring warnings about cracks.

At least 336 people are known to have died after the Rana Plaza in the suburb of Savar collapsed on Wednesday.

On Saturday morning, at least 24 more people were rescued from the rubble. Rescuers and volunteers, who worked through the night, cheered as they were brought to safety.

Emergency personnel say up to 14 more people are still trapped on what was the fifth floor of the building and work is under way to free them.

Hundreds of volunteers are still helping army and emergency services. Bodies are also still being retrieved from this massive tangle of concrete and metal.

There have been more clashes with police and protesters near the site as anger simmers over the disaster. We passed dozens of riot police on the drive here, some were guarding other nearby garment factories following attacks on several others.

Earlier, rescue teams said they had located about 40 survivors on the collapsed third and fifth floors of the building. Officials said they were working to extricate the remaining survivors and had passed oxygen cylinders and water to those still trapped.

Among those pulled out alive after three days in the rubble was Marina Begum, 22, now recovering in hospital.

"It felt like I was in hell," she said.

"It was so hot, I could hardly breathe, there was no food or water. When I regained my senses I found myself in this hospital bed."

More bodies of victims were also retrieved overnight and on Saturday morning. Some 3,000 people are believed to have been working in the building at the time of the collapse and about 600 are still missing. Rana Plaza housed three garment factories, a bank and a number of shops.

Watching the operation are hundreds of relatives of those still missing, many clutching photographs of their loved ones.

Abul Basar wept as he awaited news of his wife who worked in one of the garment factories.

"My son says that his mother will come back some day, she must return," he cried.

Mr. Tapas and Mr. Adnan, the owners of the New Wave Bottoms and New Wave Style factories, were remanded in custody for 12 days by a court on Saturday. They were arrested earlier in the day after turning themselves in.

Deputy chief of Dhaka police Shyami Mukherjee said the two were accused of causing "death due to negligence".

The owners reportedly told their employees to return to work on Wednesday, even though cracks were visible in the building a day earlier.

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