Betrayal in Bangladesh: The 2013 Dhaka Garment Factory Collapse

in 2013 negligence greed cost cutting and deeply systemic corruption led to one of the deadliest structural failures in history breaking murder when Daka the capital and largest city of Bangladesh home of the notoriously unsafe garment manufacturing industry experienced a major garment Factory collapse in 2005 a collapse that claimed the lives of more than 70 workers and injured 80 others it began raise Global awareness of these often times illegal operations operations that turn out many of the western world's most popular clothing lines in the same district just 8 km away when a fire broke out in 2012 and ripped through another garment Factory claiming the lives of 110 plus and injuring hundreds more owing to lack safety standards faulty wiring and severe overcrowding of workers many believe this would be the turning point for these unsafe practices taking place at count L locations amongst the thousands of factories in Bangladesh employing millions of laborers on Wednesday April 24th 2013 just before 9:00 a.m. in the city of Savar part of the greater DACA metropolitan area a portion of the Rana plaza building containing five garment factories with some 3,500 plus workers inside at the time collapsed the scene was horrific bystanders and other locals turned First Responders numbering in the thousands digging with their bare hands wherever they could to reach survivors crudely amputating limbs of those who were pinned in an effort to free them the nearby enam Medical College and Hospital 1 km away with its roughly 750 bed capacity was quickly overwhelmed the immediate areas surrounding such factories in Bangladesh are notorious for their largely slum-like impoverished conditions often lacking in modern infrastructure especially the infrastructure needed to treat the infirmed in a disaster of such magnitude unfortunately this lack of preparedness extended into the rescue efforts as well even when authorities began to arrive on scene like the Bangladeshi Army rapid action Battalion the Border guard police fire service and civil defense amongst others rescue and Recovery operations would continue to be carried out halfhazard with little to no life-saving equipment or life detection devices and minimal first responder training many wouldbe Rescuers would become victims themselves and even perished in the subsequent fires and further collapse of the now extremely precarious structure reports also State the Western nations were privy to this inability of the Bangladeshi government to respond adequately however all offers of international assistance like additional personnel and Equipment life detection devices and cameras from entities like the United Nations and the UK went either largely ignored or outright rejected by Bangladeshi officials fearing damage to their national pride the prime minister shik Hina ordered the day following the collapse to be a national day of mourning while also ordering the arrest of soel Rana amongst other owners of the Garment Factories at Rana Plaza a bold unprecedented move in Bangladesh at the time we will come back to this part shortly in addition to the chaos of inexperienced and IL equipped rescue efforts though the collapse at Rana Plaza was also something of a Tipping Point for many of Bangladesh's citizens who had suffered already for decades as a result of similar dis Asters due to and amongst poor working conditions in the days following the collapse as search and rescue efforts continued despite the national day of M garment labor bosses across the country fully intended to keep their factories open and operating attempting to force their laborers back to work exacerbating and already outraged and now fully aware of populace rioting ensued throughout Savar daaka and similar industrial areas of Bangladesh workers refusing to go in multiple garment factories settle blad Vehicles smashed police confronted in the streets and many protesters demonstrating vehemently for the owner of Rana Plaza so Elana to receive the death penalty and reports conflict but rescue operations were called off between May 13th and 14th in all of the estimated 3,550 occupants more than 1,100 were declared deceased and 2,400 plus were injured the matter of cheap clothing being produced in Bangladesh from many popular brands in the Western World Is No Secret what can often slip under the radar though and still does to this day is the logistics behind just how this takes place and the plausible deniability behind it these crude makeshift clothing workshops are often operating nowhere near above board even amongst slowly improving Bangladeshi labor and construction standards but Global demand is high for lowc cost products leading to orders placed by Major retailers frequently exceeding production capabilities of wood be legitimate operations many retailers will avoid at all cost shelves racks or nowadays online inventories being Barren for consumers potentially leading them to purchase Elsewhere One of the primary ways this takes place to oversimplify a major player submits a massive order for say 5 million pairs of discount jeans the order is submitted to their fully evaluated manufacturing supplier in Bangladesh and for this hypothetical example the totally legit pants factory a Factory that adheres strictly to said retailers rigorous safety standards and even passes with flying colors every time there's an inspection however this particular facility can only produce 500,000 of the 5 million pairs within the required timeline now if said retailer placing the order has no specific language in the contract preventing it and sometimes even when they do the totally legit pants factory then subcontracts the remaining order out amongst their suppliers enter the less than ethical overcrowded garment factories on the fringes of Bangladeshi Society the orders are then shipped either to or under the name of the totally legit pants factory and ultimately forward it on to the retailers Distribution Center in some Far Away place this major retailer keeps their fingers crossed now in hopes that a major disaster doesn't occur in one of these illegal workshops putting their labels and clothing items on TV screens for the world to see the owner of the eight-story building that collapsed in Bangladesh has been arrested the owner of the building that collapsed and killed at least 370 people in Bangladesh this week was arrested the owner of the Bangladeshi building which collapsed killing at least 377 people has been paraded before the media now it's safe to say with illegitimate operations like these comes little to no adherence to globally accepted engineering practices ethical construction or any sort of safety standards in day-to-day operations in Bangladesh's giant garment industry Factory fires are common and deadly the boss at M apparels Madel hak chalry showed us an evacuation map marking the location of 13 fire extinguishers but nearly all of them were missing there are several 100 workers on this floor of the factory and the manager tells us that it's more than 100,000 square ft so far we've only spotted two fire extinguishers and if there were a fire the workers would find this emergency exit door locked by boxes so El R his cronies in local politics and other labor bosses at Rana Plaza would take this to the next level though and Beyond literally ra the son of an already affluent landowner Abdul K would grow up in close proximity to his father's Wheeler Dealer style his relationship with popular Bangladeshi movie stars and his close ties with local politicians as soel came into his own he would quote learn to emulate this even more aggressively he had a cold temperament well suited to the thuggery and intimidation tactics that are a Mainstay of Bangladesh's Cutthroat local politics in September of 03 soel R and his parents penned a contract with ton Moy housing limited a local real estate construction and development company that would be expected to construct the basement and five to six-story structure above RA in his mid-20s by this point with his local muscle combined with his parents political CL out pressured tonmoy housing into funding the beginnings of this construction out of their own pocket with the promise of a majority stake in the buildings ownership once complete the capital Development Authority or ra AJ UK was the governing body needed to sign off on building applications and Grant permits in this area of Savar however R and his family would bypass this process and instead seek quote permission from their own friends in local politics like the mayor of the Savar municip municipality and other similar officials they could influence these officials would give no consideration to the structure's design instead granting quote building permits essentially in name only with no project oversight tonmoy housing would begin Construction in 2006 and by 2007 it's reported immediately after completion of the basement in first floor so breached their contract and removed the development company from the project by force the owner of tonmy housing Ciel is attempted to come to an agreement but R wanted tonmoy out of the picture so they could not claim any ownership all this after threatening them frequently during the duration of what little they had completed ra would seek out his own contractors to finish the construction of R Plaza and instead of stopping at the originally vaguely planned 5 to six stories he would push for the structure to now be 8 to n stories and sought quote permits yet again from the same Municipal officials who had no authority to do so bypassing the capital Development Authority once again in addition to the top two floors being hastily thrown together they were done so using substandard materials ra had also never sought permission from any authorities to use the location as a manufacturing complex and just like many other buildings in the docker region R Plaza would be constructed at top of former Waterway with the top floors still ready for what was potentially either the ninth or even 10th floor reports are vague either way not quite complete by 2013 the year of collapse and materials were staged for it at top the uppermost floors on the morning of April 23rd 2013 the day prior to the collapse large cracks began to appear in Pillars toward the middle of the building this got the attention of local journalists and even a local engineer this video filmed by a local television channel shows large cracks in the walls of the building which housed garment factories and a shopping center that may have hinted at the disaster to come now it's important to note that Rana Plaza by this point contained five separate illegal Garmin operations employing up to 5,000 local workers the first two floors containing a market and local BAC bank branch and as the floors went up garment factories such as New Wave bottoms limited Phantom apparels limited ethar Tech limited Phantom Tech limited and New Wave style limited the local engineer who did visit upon the news of these cracks inspected them and stated the building was quote vulnerable suggesting further inspection take place immediately by the capital Development Authority and Bangladesh Universe of engineering and Technology soon arriving on the scene himself soel insisted a crack in the building was not a hazard and attempted to persuade the journalists not to report it the engineer had also recommended the building be sealed off entirely pending the further inspections and even the bank branch that was located in the lower floors of Rana Plaza due to safety concerns heeded these warnings and ensured their employees did not report for work the following day however garment Factory bosses at Rana Plaza not only reassured workers the building was safe but even threatened to cut off wages entirely if they did not report in the next morning One Survivor found trapped in the rubble 8 hours after the collapse stated they beat some of us and told us there is nothing to worry about nothing will happen it is just a simple crack many workers had still refused despite the threats and did not report for work on that fateful morning of April 24th the building was still heavily populated though come 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning and in these structures in Bangladesh diesel generators are common as electricity coming into the building is unreliable and prone to frequent cut offs the Garment production requires electrical power and these generators would pick up the slack multiple times throughout the course of any given day at 8:45 a.m. when the power cut off that morning the vibrations from a reported 4 diesel generators weighing several metric tons each located inside the building at Rana Plaza began to pulse throughout the structure once turned on another Survivor even recalled the floor and pillars began to shake and a deafening clap echoed across the floor that sent throngs of workers most of them women scrambling for the stairwells as the vibration from the generators was the final straw in this collapse it's highly likely the substandard engineering and construction also stemmed from substandard designs designs that would determine whether loadbearing capacities could sustain the amount of live load this structure would undergo day after day thousands of workers throughout the building equipment material staged for manufacturing and a building that was without permits and never designed to be a factory it's been alleged by multiple sources that soel R was in his basement office at ra Plaza that fateful morning surrounded by his colleagues calling and ACC costing anyone he could to try and get Workers to report in for the day when the collapse took place his basement office remained unscathed with ra trapped inside his body guards quickly rushing to dig him out and help him escape the scene now in a country where these powerful labor bosses at this level were rarely held to account prior to this on the contrary this collapse at Rana Plaza was a Tipping Point in many ways on the 26th of April the chairman of New Wave style limited and his director were arrested in DACA 3 days after the collapse on the 28th R was found and arrested in the city of benapole a city on the border with India where he was attempting to flee on the 29th R's father Abdul K was also arrested however I'm sitting here trying to type this part of the script out and I just I I I don't have words to describe it so while a reported 37 to 42 individuals ended up being charged either directly or indirectly in the homicide of more than than 1,100 Innocents via their negligence and Corruption it appears that soel R Remains the only one in actual custody as he received a 3-year sentence in 2017 4 years after the collapse the first Hearing in general didn't even take place until September of 2016 and R's sentence wasn't even related to the collapse either their justice system could only get him on some sort of technicality regarding improper reporting of his wealth the site was eventually cleared and remains vac to this day victims their families and others affected by the tragedy take it upon themselves to memorialize the more than 1,100 victims on the site regularly victims who had their voices silenced that day by overt corruption negligence greed and a failed justice system many nonprofits have been established to Aid victims and their families many retailers have started to push for reform but there is still a long road ahead in Bangladesh [Music] [Music] l

Channel: Brick Immortar

Views: 215,748

Keywords: rana plaza collapse footage, rana plaza collapse documentary, 2013 bangladesh factory collapse, 2013 garment factory disaster in bangladesh, 2013 savar building collapse, dhaka clothing factory collapse, rana plaza disaster in bangladesh in 2013, made in bangladesh, fast fashion

Id: Fbu8ggGeSZI

Length: 16min 23sec (983 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 03 2021