Bangladesh building survivors protest as toll passes 700

Hundreds of survivors of Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster blocked a main highway to demand wages Tuesday as the death toll from the collapse of a nine-storey building passed 700, officials said.

Around 3,000 garment workers were on shift at the Rana Plaza complex at the time of the collapse on the morning of April 24, making clothing for Western retailers such as Britain’s Primark and the Spanish label Mango.

Many of the staff were earning only around 38 dollars a month, a salary condemned as “slave labour” by Pope Francis.

But with work having come to a complete halt, the employees are now demanding payment from factory owners, both for their wages and as compensation for injuries suffered when the complex caved in.

Police said around 400 survivors blocked a highway connecting the capital with the country’s south and southwest on Tuesday by staging a sit-down protest.

The workers were chanting slogans, demanding “unpaid salaries and compensation”, local police chief M Asaduzzaman said.

The protests came as the army revealed that dozens more bodies had been pulled from the rubble overnight.