DOHA - Thousands of garment factory workers have protested in the capital, Dhaka, over the death of about 200 workers in a building collapse, as rescuers continued to hunt for survivors, local media have reported.
Al Jazeera's special correspondent, whom we are not naming for security reasons, said on Thursday that thousands of protesters took to the streets of Dhaka with sticks in their hands chanting slogans such as "we want execution of the garment factory owners".
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters
Association building office has been attacked, our correspondent said.
Workers blocked a road and indulged in vandalism at some places, the Daily Star newspaper reported. The protests come a day after a garment factory collapsed killing more than 200, with the death toll still climbing, even as criticism mounted of foreign firms that source cheap clothes from the country.
[The death toll had climbed to 280 by Friday morning, with concern that the eventual number of fatalities could be has high 800 as survivors still trapped in the rubble run out of strength before rescuers can reach them, Syed Tashfin Chowdhury reported from Dhaka for Asia Times Online.
[Garment factories in Bangladesh hire predominantly female workers, and many pregnant workers are among those still trapped in the collapsed Rana Plaza building, which housed several factories 30 kilometers outside Dhaka. These women are not provided maternity leave and they have to work till the last two weeks of their pregnancy. Under confinement and stress, some of these women have given birth where they were trapped, Chowdhury reported, with one dying while giving birth. A worker who was trying to see how these people were doing through a hole had seen the baby alive near the mother's body. A few minutes later, rubble fell on the baby killing it as well, he said.]
After visiting the disaster site, Interior Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir told reporters the building had violated construction codes and that "the culprits would be punished".
The local police chief, Mohammaed Asaduzzaman, said police and the government's Capital Development Authority had filed separate cases of negligence against the building owner.
[The government has still not arrested the owner, Mohammad Sohel Rana, who is also a senior convener of Bangladesh Jubo League, a wing of the ruling party in Bangladesh, Chowdhury reported on Friday. Workers were reportedly forced back to work after Rana was informed the day before the collapse that the building was unsafe.]
More than 1,000 people were injured when the site housing five garment factories on the outskirts of Dhaka imploded on Wednesday, allegedly after managers ignored workers' warnings that the building had become unstable.
Flags flew at half-mast on Thursday as the shell-shocked country declared a day of mourning for the victims of the nation's worst factory disaster, which highlighted new safety concerns in Bangladesh's vital garment industry.
Army Brigadier General Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder said many people were still trapped in the building, which housed a number of garment factories employing hundreds of people. Workers had said a day earlier that large cracks had developed in the structure. A clearer picture of the rescue operation would be available by the afternoon, Shikder said.
Searchers worked through the night to get through the jumbled mess of concrete with drills or their bare hands, passing water and flashlights to those pinned inside the building. "I gave them whistles, water, torchlights. I heard them cry. We can't leave them behind this way," said fire official Abul Khayer.
Rescuers cut holes in the jumbled mess of concrete, passing water and torches to those pinned inside the building as rescue operations illuminated by floodlights continued through the night.
The disaster came less than five months after a factory fire killed 112 people and underscored the unsafe conditions in Bangladesh's booming garment industry, the second biggest in the world.
Workers said they had hesitated to go into the building on Wednesday morning because it had developed such large cracks a day earlier that it even drew the attention of local news channels.
Abdur Rahim, who worked on the fifth floor, said a factory manager gave assurances that there was no problem, so employees went inside. "After about an hour or so, the building collapsed suddenly," Rahim said. He next remembered regaining consciousness outside.
Only the ground floor of the Rana Plaza in the Savar district remained intact after the collapse. Fire crews said up to 2,000 people were in the building when it collapsed.
Building collapses are common in Bangladesh. Many multi-storey blocks are built in violation of construction standards. In 2005, dozens were killed after a multi-storey garment factory collapsed in the same area.
(Inter Press Service. Published by Inter Press Service under an agreement with Al Jazeera. Republished with permission).
(With additional reporting from Dhaka for Asia Times Online by Syed Tashfin Chowdhury, Editor of Xtra, the weekend magazine of New Age, in Bangladesh.)
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