Kevin Frayer/Associated Press
Bangladeshi rescue workers reacted Sunday after a fire broke out in a tunnel that the workers were using to search for survivors in the collapsed building near Dhaka. More Photos »
SAVAR, Bangladesh — The mother stood at the edge of the wreckage, pressing her lips to photos of her two children — Asma, who had worked in a garment factory on the fourth floor, and Sultan, who worked on the fifth.
For five days after the building collapsed, rescue teams had retrieved corpses and survivors, but not her son and daughter. Tears on her cheeks, she began to shout: at a soldier sweating beneath a hard hat, at the shattered building, at her god, and finally at her children, calling out their names, beckoning to them, "Today, I'm here! But you haven't come back!"
Thousands of people surrounded the site on Sunday, watching the huge rescue operation, even as hopes faded that many more victims would be found alive. For nearly 12 hours, rescuers tried to save a trapped woman, lowering dry food and juice to her as they carefully cut through the wreckage trying to reach her. But then a fire broke out, apparently killing the woman, leaving many firefighters in tears.
With national outrage boiling over, Bangladeshi paramilitary officers tracked down and arrested Sohel Rana, the owner of the building, who was hiding near the Indian border, and returned him by helicopter to Dhaka. When loudspeakers at the rescue site announced his capture earlier in the day, local news reports said, the crowd broke out in cheers.
The collapse of the building, the Rana Plaza, is considered the deadliest accident in the history of the garment industry. It is known to have claimed at least 377 lives, and hundreds more workers are thought to be missing still, buried in the rubble.
The Rana Plaza building contained five garment factories, employing more than 3,000 workers, who were making clothing for European and American consumers. Labor activists, citing customs records, company Web sites or labels discovered in the wreckage, say that the factories produced clothing for JC Penney; Cato Fashions; Benetton; Primark, the low-cost British store chain; and other retailers.
Everywhere near the building, the stench of death was overpowering. Men in surgical masks sprayed disinfectant in the air. Others sprayed air freshener. At one point, the police said, searches inside the structure were suspended because some rescuers were overcome by dust and the odor of decomposing bodies.
Savar is a crowded industrial suburb of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, and the disaster has overwhelmed local institutions. A high school near Rana Plaza is now a staging ground for the identification of corpses. Nazma Begum, 25, stood beside a crude coffin that contained the remains of her sister, Shamima. She was standing guard over it until her father arrived to take the sister back to their home village to be buried. Sticks of burning incense had been wedged into the coffin to fight the awful smell.
"I had hoped that my sister was still alive," she said softly. "But that hope is now shattered."
Like so many young women in the country, the two sisters had gotten work in garment factories to help support their families. Ms. Begum makes about $85 a month; her sister made $56. Now Ms. Begum wants to quit her job. She has heard rumors that the building where she works is unsafe.
Just then a group of young men placed another coffin nearby, slid open the wooden lid and sprayed the body with disinfectant. A man on a megaphone made an announcement: "We have a new body," he said, as a crowd surged toward the coffin. "You can come and see the body to identify it."
For days, rescuers crawled though pancaked spaces on their hands and knees, afraid that using heavy machinery would collapse the building further. Lowered precariously into holes, they called out through the rubble and the darkness, listening for the voices of survivors. Many were saved in the painstaking process.
"We were shouting, asking if anyone was alive," said Sharif ul-Islam, 35, a firefighter. "We would say, 'If anyone is alive, please make a sound! We will come to you!' "
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Tears and Rage as Hope Fades in Bangladesh
Dengan url
https://dunialuasekali.blogspot.com/2013/04/tears-and-rage-as-hope-fades-in.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Tears and Rage as Hope Fades in Bangladesh
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Tears and Rage as Hope Fades in Bangladesh
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar