2013 Savar building collapse

2013 Savar building collapse

Aerial view of the building following the disaster
Time	08:45 am BST (UTC+06:00)
Date	24 April 2013
Location	Savar Upazila, Dhaka District, Bangladesh
Coordinates
Also known as	Rana plaza building collapse
Deaths	1,129
Non-fatal injuries	~2,500

The 2013 Savar building collapse or Rana Plaza collapse was a structural failure that occurred on Wednesday, 24 April 2013 in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka, Bangladesh where an eight-story commercial building named Rana Plaza collapsed. The search for the dead ended on 13 May 2013 with a death toll of 1,130. Approximately 2,500 injured people were rescued from the building alive. It is considered the deadliest garment-factory accident in history, as well as the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern human history.

The building contained clothing factories, a bank, apartments, and several shops. The shops and the bank on the lower floors immediately closed after cracks were discovered in the building. The building's owners ignored warnings to avoid using the building after cracks had appeared the day before. Garment workers were ordered to return the following day, and the building collapsed during the morning rush-hour.

Background

The location of Savar (red marker), the site of the building collapse, in relation to Dhaka

Photo of Rana Plaza taken one year before the collapse.

The building, Rana Plaza, was owned by Sohel Rana, allegedly a leading member of the local Jubo League, the youth wing of the ruling Awami League political party. It housed a number of separate garment factories employing around 5,000 people, several shops, and a bank. The factories manufactured apparel for brands including Benetton, Bonmarché, the Children's Place, El Corte Inglés, Joe Fresh, Monsoon Accessorize, Mango, Matalan, Primark, and Walmart.

The head of the Bangladesh Fire Service & Civil Defense, Ali Ahmed Khan, said that the upper four floors had been built without a permit. Rana Plaza's architect, Massood Reza, said the building was planned for shops and offices – but not factories. Other architects stressed the risks involved in placing factories inside a building designed only for shops and offices, noting the structure was potentially not strong enough to bear the weight and vibration of heavy machinery.

On 23 April 2013, a TV channel recorded footage that showed cracks in the Rana Plaza building. Immediately afterward, the building was evacuated, and the shops and the bank on the lower floors were closed. Later in the day, Sohel Rana said to the media that the building was safe and workers should return tomorrow. Managers at Ether Tex threatened to withhold a month's pay from workers who refused to come to work.

Collapse and rescue

Side view of the collapsed building

Video clip of rescue work at the collapsed building

On the morning of 24 April, there was a power outage, and diesel generators on the top floor were started. The building collapsed at about 08:57 a.m., leaving only the ground floor intact. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association president confirmed that 3,122 workers were in the building at the time of the collapse. One local resident described the scene as if "an earthquake had struck."

Very early on in the rescue effort, the United Nations offered to send their expert search and rescue unit, known as the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), to the site, but this offer was rejected by Dhaka authorities. The Bangladesh government made a statement suggesting that the area's local rescue emergency services were well equipped. Prior to offering assistance to Bangladesh, the UN held consultations to assess the country's ability to mount an effective rescue operation, and they reached the conclusion that they lacked that capability. Bangladeshi officials, fearing damage to national pride, refused to accept the assistance offered to them by the UN. A large portion of the rescue operation consisted of inadequately equipped volunteers, many of whom had no protective clothing and wore sandals. Some buried workers drank their own urine to survive the high temperatures, waiting to be saved. Not only was the Bangladeshi government accused of favouring national pride over those buried alive, but many relatives of those trapped in the debris criticised the government for trying to end the rescue mission prematurely.

One of the garment manufacturers' websites indicates that more than half of the victims were women, along with a number of their children who were in nursery facilities within the building. Bangladeshi Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir confirmed that fire service personnel, police, and military troops were assisting with the rescue effort. Volunteer rescue workers used bolts of fabric to assist survivors to escape from the building. A national day of mourning was held on 25 April.

On 8 May an army spokesman, Mir Rabbi, said the army's attempt to recover more bodies from the rubble would continue for at least another week. On 10 May, 17 days after the collapse, a woman named Reshma was found and rescued alive and almost unhurt under the rubble.

Causes

The direct reasons for the building problems were:

1. Building built first without authorization on a pond,
2. Conversion from commercial use to industrial use,
3. Addition of 4 floors above the original permit
4. The use of substandard construction material (which led to an overload of the building structure aggravated by vibrations due to the generators). Those various elements indicated dubious business practices by Sohel Rana and dubious administrative practices in Savar.

One good example to illustrate this context is the evacuation of the building after the cracks. It is reported that the Industrial police first requested the evacuation of the building until an inspection had been conducted. It is reported that Abdur Razak Khan, an engineer, declared the building unsafe and requested public authorities to conduct a more thorough inspection; he was arrested for helping the owner illegally add three floors. It is also reported that Kabir Hossain Sardar, the upazila nirbahi officer visited the site, met with Sohel Rana, and declared the building safe. Sohel Rana said to the media that the building was safe and workers should return to work the next day. One manager of the factories in the Rana Plaza reported that Sohel Rana told them that the building was safe. Managers requested then workers to go back to work, so that on the next day workers entered the factories again.

Based on all the above elements it can be concluded that one cause of the disaster is the lack of good governance in Savar, and corruption. Some have called Sohel Rana "a crooked mobster".

Causes related to manufacturers and safety compliance

Several have argued that the decision by managers to send workers back into the factories was due to the pressure to complete orders for buyers on time. This second line of argument gives partial responsibility for the disaster to the short production deadlines preferred by buyers due to the quick changes of designs, referred to as fast fashion. Some have argued the demand for fast fashion and low-cost clothing motivated minimal oversight by clothing brands, and that collectively organised trade unions could have responded to the pressure of management. Others have argued that trade unions would increase workforce costs and thus endanger the Bangladesh garment industry.

Since the Spectrum factory collapse in 2005, prominent manufacturers organised projects like the Ethical Trading Initiative and Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) with the purpose of preventing such disasters. These programs ultimately failed to prevent the Savar building collapse. Despite social compliance audits conducted according to BSCI procedure at two of the factories at Rana Plaza, auditors failed to detect the structural concerns. In a press release following the collapse, BSCI explained that their system did not cover building safety. This has been contested, as the BSCI audit questionnaire required auditors to check building permits, and discrepancies between the permit and the number of floors in practice were evident. Some have argued that the BSCI face weak incentives to report such violations.

More conclusions about causes will be available when the investigation is over and the courts give their decisions.

Aftermath

Bangladesh

Rescuers carrying out one of the survivors from the collapsed building

The day after the Rana Plaza building collapse, the Dhaka city development authority filed a case against the owners of the building and the five garment factories operating inside it. On the same day, dozens of survivors were discovered in the remains of the building. Although at first Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had denied the membership of Rana in the Jubo League, after intense criticism of her speech she ordered the arrest of Sohel Rana and four of the owners of the garment factories operating in the building. Sohel Rana was reported to have gone into hiding; however, authorities reported that four other individuals had already been arrested in connection with the collapse.

Two days after the building collapse, garment workers across the industrial areas of Dhaka, Chittagong and Gazipur rioted, targeting vehicles, commercial buildings and garment factories. The next day, leftist political parties and the BNP-led 18 Party Alliance demanded the arrest and trial of suspects and an independent commission to identify vulnerable factories. Four days after the building collapsed, the owner of the Rana Plaza, Sohel Rana, was arrested at Benapole, on the Indo-Bangladeshi border, in Jessore District by security forces. On the same day a fire broke out at the disaster site and authorities were forced to temporarily suspend the search for survivors.

On 1 May on International Workers' Day, protesting workers paraded through central Dhaka by the thousands to demand safer working conditions and the death penalty for the owner of Rana Plaza. A week later hundreds of survivors of Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster blocked a main highway to demand wages as the death toll from the collapse of the nine-story building passed 700. Local government officials said they had been in talks with the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association to pay the workers their outstanding April salaries plus a further three months – £97. After officials promised the surviving workers that they would be soon paid, they ended their protest. The government and garment association were compiling a list of surviving employees to establish who must be paid and compensated. The next day, 18 garment plants, including 16 in Dhaka and two in Chittagong, were closed down. Textile minister, Abdul Latif Siddique, told reporters that more plants would be shut as part of strict new measures to ensure safety.

On 5 June, police in Bangladesh fired into the air in an attempt to disperse hundreds of former workers and relatives of the victims of the collapse who were protesting to demand back pay and compensation promised by the government and the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

On 10 June, seven inspectors were suspended and accused of negligence for renewing the licenses of garment factories in the building that collapsed.

On 30 August 100 days after the collapse of Rana Plaza, injured workers and family members of those who died there along with workers rights activists inaugurated a memorial for the tragedy, a crude statue of two fists thrusting towards the sky grasping a hammer and sickle. The police attempted to stop the erection of the memorial several times. It remains the only memorial monument for the tragedy.

On 22 September, at least 50 people were injured when police fired rubber bullets and tear gas into a crowd of protesters who were blocking streets in Dhaka demanding a minimum wage of $100 (8,114 takas) a month. In November, a 10-story garment factory in Gazipur, which supplied Western brands, was allegedly burned down by workers angered over rumours of a colleague's death in police firing.

In March 2014 Rana Plaza owner Sohel Rana was granted six months' bail in the High Court. This prompted angry reactions from labour leaders. However, Rana will not be released from jail as another case filed by police is pending.

A December 2015 report, written by the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, found that only eight of 3,425 factories inspected had "remedied violations enough to pass a final inspection" despite the international community's $280 million commitment to clean up Bangladesh's RMG industry.

Worldwide criticism

Politicians

Board with photos of missing people posted by relatives

Nick Clegg, then UK Deputy PM and leader of the Liberal Democrats said: "... there's more we could do to talk about what goes on behind the scenes and this terrible catastrophe might well prompt people to think again."

Michael Connarty, UK's Falkirk East MP, is calling on the UK Government to push through new legislation to end modern day slavery by forcing major High Street companies in the UK to audit their supply chain. The framework requests that those companies make vigorous checks to ensure slave labour is not used in third world countries and the UK to produce their goods.

Karel De Gucht, current European Commissioner for Trade, warned that retailers and the Bangladeshi government could face action from the EU if nothing is done to improve the conditions of workers – adding that shoppers should also consider where they are spending their money.

On 1 May, Pope Francis spoke out against the working conditions in the factory:

A headline that really struck me on the day of the tragedy in Bangladesh was 'Living on 38 euros a month'. That is what the people who died were being paid. This is called slave labour. Today in the world this slavery is being committed against something beautiful that God has given us – the capacity to create, to work, to have dignity. How many brothers and sisters find themselves in this situation! Not paying fairly, not giving a job because you are only looking at balance sheets, only looking at how to make a profit. That goes against God!

Advocacy groups

Human Rights Watch stated their concern over the number of factory-building tragedies in Bangladesh; there have been numerous major accidents in the country in the past decade, including the 2012 Dhaka fire.

IndustriALL Global Union, a global union federation representing textile and garment workers' trade unions around the world, launched an online campaign in support of the Bangladeshi unions' demand for labour law reform in the wake of the disaster. The campaign, hosted on LabourStart, calls for changes in the law to make it easier for unions to organise workers, as well as demanding improved health and safety conditions.

On 27 April, protesters surrounded Primark store on Oxford Street in the City of Westminster in the West End of London. Speaking outside the store, Murray Worthy, from campaign group War on Want, said:

We're here to send a clear message to Primark that the 300 deaths in the Bangladesh building collapse were not an accident – they were entirely preventable deaths. If Primark had taken its responsibility to those workers seriously, no one need have died this week.

There have been monthly protests at Benetton's flagship store at Oxford Circus in London since the one year anniversary of the collapse. Benetton initially denied reports linking production of their clothing at the factory, but clothes and documents linked to Benetton were discovered at the disaster site. The protesters are demanding that Benetton contribute to the compensation fund, which they have not yet done.

The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights established a workers' relief fund, which raised $26,000 for injured workers and surviving family members by September 2013.

Academia

A team of researchers from NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights began their investigation which resulted in an April 2014 entitled "Business as Usual Is Not an Option: Supply Chains & Sourcing after Rana Plaza."

Consumers

Dozens of consumers in the United States spoke out against unsafe working conditions found in the factory building. People also unleashed their anger at retailers that did not have any connections to that specific building, but are known to source from factories located in Bangladesh.

Fashion industry response

At a meeting of retailers and NGOs a week after the collapse, a new Accord on Factory and Building Safety in Bangladesh was created and a deadline of 16 May was set to sign it. The agreement expands on a previous accord signed only by the US-based PVH, which owns Calvin Klein, and German retailer Tchibo.

Walmart, along with 14 other North American companies, refused to sign the accord as the deadline passed. As of 23 May 2013, thirty-eight companies had signed the accord. Walmart, J.C. Penney and labour activists have been considering an agreement to improve factory safety in Bangladesh for at least two years. In 2011, Walmart rejected reforms that would have had retailers pay more for apparel to help Bangladesh factories improve safety standards.

On 10 July 2013, a group of 17 major North American retailers, including Walmart, Gap, Target and Macy's, announced a plan to improve factory safety in Bangladesh, drawing immediate criticism from labour groups who complained that it was less stringent than an accord reached among European companies. Unlike the accord joined mainly by European retailers, the plan lacks legally binding commitments to pay for those improvements.

Dov Charney, the founder & former CEO of American Apparel, was interviewed on Vice.tv and spoke out against the poor treatment of workers in developing countries and refers to it as "slave labor." Charney proposes a "Global Garment Workers Minimum Wage" as well discusses in detail many of the inner workings of the modern Fast fashion industry commerce practices that leads to dangerous factory conditions like at Savar

Compensation to victims

As of mid-September 2013, compensations to families of disaster victims were still under discussion, with many families struggling to survive after having lost a major wage earner. Families who had received the $200 compensation from Primark were only those able to provide DNA evidence of their relative's death in the collapse, which proved extremely difficult. The US government provided DNA kits to the families of victims.

Of the 29 brands identified as having sourced products from the Rana Plaza factories, only 9 attended meetings held in November 2013 to agree a proposal on compensation to the victims. Several companies refused to sign including Walmart, Carrefour, Mango, Auchan and Kik. The agreement was signed by Primark, Loblaw, Bonmarche and El Corte Ingles. By March 2014, seven of the 28 international brands sourcing products from Rana Plaza had contributed to the Rana Plaza Donor’s Trust Fund compensation fund, which is backed by the International Labour Organization.

More than 2 dozen victims' families have not been compensated as they could not back up their claims with documentation.

Charges

On 1 June 2015, murder charges were filed by Bangladeshi police against 42 different people, including the owners of the building, over the collapse.

International reaction

The Savar building collapse has led to widespread discussions about corporate social responsibility across global supply chains. Based on an analysis of the Savar incident, Wieland and Handfield (2013) suggest that companies need to audit products and suppliers and that supplier auditing needs to go beyond direct relationships with first-tier suppliers. They also demonstrate that visibility must be improved if supply cannot be directly controlled, and that smart and electronic technologies play a key role to improve visibility. Finally, they highlight that collaboration with local partners, across the industry and with universities is crucial to successfully managing social responsibility in supply chains.

Bangladesh Garment Sramik Sanghati, an organisation working for the welfare of the workers, has called on the government, international buyers and factory owners to compensate survivors and victims' families. The group has also asked that April 24 be declared Labor Safety Day in the country.

Global labour and rights groups have criticised Western retailers and say they are not doing enough to ensure the safety at factories where their clothes are made. The companies linked to the Rana Plaza disaster include the Spanish brand Mango, Italian brand Benetton and French retailer Auchan.

In April 2014, international news coverage reported that thousands of people gathered at an event held to commemorate the first anniversary of the disaster.

See also

• Final Embrace
• Collapse of Rana Plaza
• Accord on Factory and Building Safety in Bangladesh
• Other garment factory disasters:
  • Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (1911)
  • Pakistan garment factory fires (2012)
• Other building collapses:
  • Pemberton Mill (1860 collapse)
  • Sampoong Department Store collapse (1995)
  • Thane building collapse (2013)
  • Riga supermarket roof collapse (2013)
• Organizations
  • Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety

Further reading

• Heartbreaking Bangladesh Factory Photo Shows Couple In Final Embrace (PHOTO). The Huffington Post. 8 May 2013.
• Smile, Work and Die. Vijay Prashad. Truthdig. 26 April 2013.
• Bangladesh factory collapse: Clothes made for a tenth of retail price, documents show | Toronto Star—Toronto Star, 14 May 2013
• Will Retailers Invest in Safer Conditions in Bangladesh? – YouTube (7:43)—PBS NewsHour interview
• A year after Rana Plaza: What hasn’t changed since the Bangladesh factory collapse, Washington Post, 18 April 2014
• 'Without stronger unions, Rana Plaza will happen time and time again'. The Guardian. 24 April 2014.
• 27 Arrested at The Children’s Place HQ in Protest over Factory Collapse. Democracy Now! 13 March 2015.

External links

• Help the humanitarian relief effort in Savar | Industriall—IndustriALL Global Union