The death toll from Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster passed 800 on Wednesday as rescuers pulled dozens more bodies from the rubble of a nine-storey building that collapsed outside Dhaka last month.
“The death toll now stands at 803” with 790 bodies recovered from the wreckage and 13 victims who died in hospital, said Lieutenant Mir Rabbi, an official in the army control room set up to coordinate disaster relief efforts.
More than 3,000 garment workers were on shift when the Rana Plaza complex collapsed as they were turning out clothing for Western retailers such as Britain’s Primark and the Spanish label Mango.
Officials overseeing the disaster operation said a total of 2,437 people were rescued from the ruins of the building, which housed a total of five garment factories in the town of Savar, a suburb of the capital Dhaka.
Cranes and bulldozers kept clearing debris as relief workers drawn from the army and fire service wore masks to ward off the smell of decomposing bodies.
Brigadier General Siddiqul Alam Sikder said the stench of bodies trapped in the lower floors and under beams indicated the death toll would rise.
“We’re expecting to find some bodies because we still haven’t reached the bottom. We’ve finished around 70 per cent of the job,” he said.
