(SAVAR, Bangladesh) — With deep cracks visible in the walls, police had ordered a Bangladesh garment building evacuated the day before its deadly collapse, but the factories flouted the order and kept more than 2,000 people working, officials said Thursday. More than 200 people died when a huge section of the eight-story building splintered into a pile of concrete. The disaster in the Dhaka suburb of Savar came less than five months after a blaze killed 112 people in a garment factory and underscored the unsafe conditions faced by Bangladesh's garment workers, who produce clothes for brands worn around the world. Some of the companies in the building that fell say their customers include retail giants such as Wal-Mart. Hundreds of rescuers, some crawling through the maze of rubble in search of survivors and corpses, worked through the night and into Thursday amid the cries of the trapped and the wails of workers' relatives gathered outside the building, called Rana Plaza, which housed numerous garment factories and a handful of other companies. An Associated Press cameraman who went into the rubble with rescue workers spoke briefly to a man pinned face down in the darkness between concrete slabs and next to two corpses. Mohammad Altab pleaded for help, but they were unable to free him. "Save us, brother. I beg you, brother. I want to live," moaned Altab, a garment worker. "It's so painful here ... I have two little children." Another survivor, whose voice could be heard from deep in the rubble, wept as he called for help. (PHOTOS: Many Dead as Garment Factory in Bangladesh Collapses) "We want to live brother; it's hard to remain alive here. It would have been better to die than enduring such pain to live on. We want to live. Please save us," the man cried. After the cracks were reported Tuesday, managers of a local bank that also had an office in the building evacuated their workers. The garment factories, though, kept working, ignoring the instructions of the local industrial police, said Mostafizur(http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&blog=19871253&post=83578&subd=timeglobalspin&ref=&feed=1)
Via: TIME GlobalSpin