Rescue hopes fade in deadly Bangladesh building collapse

PanARMENIAN.Net - Rescue workers in Bangladesh have given up hope of finding any more survivors in the rubble of a building that collapsed five days ago and began using heavy machinery to remove the rubble and look for bodies, an official said, according to Belfast Telegraph.

At least 380 people were killed when the illegally constructed, eight-storey Rana Plaza collapsed in a heap on Wednesday, April 24 morning along with thousands of workers in the five garment factories in the building. About 2,500 survivors have been accounted for.

The building owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, was arrested on Sunday in the western border town of Benapole while he was trying to flee to India.

The collapse was the deadliest disaster to hit the garment industry in Bangladesh that is worth 20 billion dollars (£12.8 billion) annually, supplies global retailers and is a mainstay of the economy.

Volunteers, army personnel and firemen have worked around the clock since Wednesday, mostly using hands and light equipment to pull out survivors. At around midnight on Sunday, authorities deployed hydraulic cranes and heavy cutting machines to break up the massive slabs of concrete into manageable segments that could be lifted away.

"We are proceeding cautiously. If there is still a soul alive, we will try to rescue that person," said army spokesman Shahinul Islam.

"There is little hope of finding anyone alive. Our men went inside and saw some dead bodies in the ground floor. But no one was seen alive," said Brig Gen Ali Ahmed Khan, the chief of the fire brigade at the scene.