Bangladesh army rejected foreign assistance over Rana Plaza collapse

Six month after the Rana Plaza building collapse

Bangladesh army rejected foreign assistance over Rana Plaza collapse

David Bergman

Bangladesh’s armed forces division rejected offers of foreign assistance to help with the search and rescue of those who were buried under the nine floor Rana Plaza building in Savar which collapsed six months ago on 24 April killing 1503 people, including the 376 bodies which are thought to remain under the building debris.

The Assistant Defence Attaché at the US embassy in Dhaka, told Bangladesh Politico that within a few hours of the building’s collapse he and a number of other military attaches called their counterparts in the Bangladesh army to offer assistance, but that the offers were rejected.

Bangladesh Politico can also reveal that within 12 hours of the building collapsing, Signapore, Japan, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates had made it known through the United Nation’s Virtual On-site Operations Coordination Centre, that they had an interest in sending a search and rescue team to Bangladesh.

Three of those countries had teams with sufficient personnel and capacity to operate at ‘two separate sites for up to 10 days’ on a 24 hour basis. The website of the UN coordination centre is accessible to Bangladesh government officials and emergency rescue managers.

In May, the NewAge newspaper disclosed that the United Nations Humanitarian advisor had phoned the director general of the fire-brigade on the day of the collapse about the option of the government requesting search and rescue teams through the United Nation’s International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), but that the Food and Disaster ministry had shown no interest.

The paper had also revealed that the day after the building collapse, the government had rejected a formal offer by the UK government to send ‘technical advisory support aimed at addressing the apparent gap in technical coordination capacity.’

In response to these disclosures at the time, Home Secretary Mustak Ahmed said, “The need for immediate foreign assistance was not felt because our rescue operation has been sufficient and exemplary.”

Safe and rescue experts have however told Bangladesh Politico that lives would likely to have been saved if foreign expertise and equipment was utilized at the time.

In an interview, Lieutenant Colonel David Lopes, the US army Assistant Defence Attaché based at the embassy in Dhaka, said that as soon as he heard about the building collapse on 24 April, he called his counterpart Lieutenant Colonel J M Emdadul Islam, the head of joint operations within the Armed Forces Division’s plans and operations directorate which is integrated within the prime minister’s office.

‘I personally called and spoke to my counterpart in the Bangladesh army,’ Colonel Lopes said. ‘I asked, “Do you need assistance?” and he said something like “No, not at this time. We will contact you if needed.”

‘Lieutenant Colonel Emdad works under the principal staff officer [Lieutenant General Abu Belal Mohammad Shafiul Haque]. Anything that comes from Emdad comes from Belal which comes from the prime minister,’ the US assistant defence attache added.

Colonel Lopes said that at the time he made his call it was not clear what the US government could offer. ‘This call was made pre-planning. Possibly we could have sent search and rescue teams, but I have no idea how quickly we could have got them here.’

‘The Bangladesh government has to formally ask us for assistance. Until formal request given, we can’t do anything,’ he said.

Lieutenant Colonel Emdad confirmed that the US military attaché had called him about providing assistance.

‘Lopes called me asked me whether we needed assistance and I clarified the situation with my bosses and they said that whatever equipment we have, we are utilising those and at present that we do not need any assistance,’ Colonel Emdad said.

‘It was not rejected. We appreciated their desire to help, but decision of our authority was that probably we could run the rescue with whatever we had at present.’

Colonel Emdad said that his ‘boss’ at the time was the Director General of the operation plan directorate, Md Jahangir Kabir Talukder, who has since been promoted to the rank of major-general.

The US Colonel also said that the defence attaches of the UK and Chinese embassies had made similar offers, with similar results. ‘I spoke to both of them and I told them about my conversation and they said they had done the same thing and got the same answer.’

A spokesperson for the British High Commission had earlier confirmed that on the day of the collapse it had been in contact with the government making it known that they could request international search and rescue teams from the United Nation’s International Search and Rescue Advisory Group.

It has not been possible to obtain a response from the Chinese defence attaché.

Bangladesh Politico has also learnt that within hours of the building collapse four countries had signed on to the United Nation’s organized Virtual On-site Operations Coordination Centre which is part of Global Disaster Alert and Co-ordination system stating that they were ‘monitoring’ the situation.

Terje Skavdal, the Geneva-based head of INSARAG told Bangladesh Politico that, ‘Signapore, Japan, South Korea and United Arab Emirates had marked on the website that they were “monitoring” the [Rana Plaza] situation. This means that if there were to have been a request for assistance from Bangladesh, they could be in a position to send a team.’

‘It could be an indication that a team can be sent, but it is no guarantee that the country can send it. There are other protocols that need to be sorted out, like who will pay for the deployment. So you can have a rescue team “monitoring” the situation, but not sure whether there is agreement at that point on the part of the government to deploy resources to send the team,” he said.

Another UN official with access to the Virtual On-site Operations Coordination Centre also told New Age that “Singapore and Republic of Korea had started monitoring the situation from 1.35pm [on the day of the collapse], then Japan also started later in the evening, of the same day.’

‘These teams could have intervened anytime if requested by Bangladesh. The teams are monitoring a situation [which means they are] ready to deploy upon request from an affected country,’ the senior official told New Age on condition of anonymity.

‘Rescue teams could have been ready to come within 24 hours of any formal request,’ he added.

Signapore, Japan and South Korea are certified by INSARAG as having ‘heavy’ search and rescue teams’ with over 30 members. This certification means that each of the teams could have been able to operate in two separate places, 24 hours a day, for a ten day period and have ‘the operational capability for difficult and complex technical search and rescue operations … typically found in urban settings, when national response capacity has either been overwhelmed or does not possess the required capability.’ United Arab Emirates is certified as a ‘medium’ team.

Two UK based search and rescue experts told Bangladesh Politico that Bangladesh’s rescue effort could have gained from the presence of a small team of experts with experience and equipment and that lives could have been saved.

Rob Davis, the team leader of Search and Rescue Assistance in Disasters, with 18 years of experience in the area, emphasized how search and rescue dogs used along with specialist location equipment would have helped find people buried in the collapsed building.

‘It is unbelievable what these dogs can do,’ Davis said. ‘They can find where smells are coming from and can do it quickly. Using dogs along with sensitive sound location equipment, which can operate in a ten metre radius depending on collapse pattern and debris, you can identify exactly where people are located.’

He agreed that the presence of additional expertise and equipment, working alongside the Bangladesh team at Rana Plaza, ‘could well have saved some lives.’

Willie McMartin, the operational director of International Rescue Corps, who has himself been involved in 32 international rescues, said that INSARAG teams like his would have brought ‘experience and equipment.’

‘There is a huge difference between someone who has only been trained and someone who has actually attended a number of structural collapses of different kinds and who has experience to draw upon,’ he said.

‘A team could have brought sound location equipment, flexible endoscopy camera equipment, and carbon dioxide detectors. Location equipment is very specialised, and would have been useful,’ he said.

McMartin however pointed out that from what he understood the Bangladesh authorities had undertaken a ‘good rescue effort’, and that whilst additional assistance from abroad would have saved ‘some lives,’ it may not have been large numbers.

Bangladesh, has been a member of INSARAG since July 2012.

Two months before formally joining the organization, the government had hosted a four day INSARAG workshop part of which explained how the group worked, how disasters should be reported effectively and how governments can seek foreign assistance.

Rana Plaza Building Collapse: Manufacturers association failures

A big part of the reason why Rana Plaza did not happen was the failure of BGMEA, the garment exporters association, to take its regulatory job seriously in the past.

New Age: BGMEA admits failure in implementation (10 Jun 2013)

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association has admitted that it failed to implement the recommendations proposed by its own inquiry committee following the collapse of the Spectrum Sweater Industries factory in 2005, New Age can reveal.
‘The BGMEA should have done what was said in the report earlier,’ admitted Md Shahidullah Azim, a BGMEA vice-president. ‘Rana Plaza was the second time in our history that [a factory collapse] had happened. Spectrum was the first. We are acting now.’
The collapse of the Spectrum factory on April 10, 2005 led to the deaths of 64 workers and the BGMEA committee’s recommendations, published in June 2005, had sought to prevent any future collapses of apparel factories by requiring the association to undertake close monitoring of the structural integrity of buildings in which its members operated.
Building experts have differing views about whether the collapse of Rana Plaza — which took place on April 24, 2013, seven years after the collapse of Spectrum, causing the death of more than 1100 workers — could have been prevented if the BGMEA had implemented the recommendations.
‘If the BGMEA had put into action these recommendations, there might have been no Rana Plaza tragedy,’ architect Mubasshar Hussain, the president of the
Institute of Architects, Bangladesh, told New Age.
‘The BGMEA would have realised that the approved Rana Plaza building plans were for commercial, not industrial, use and may have realised the poor quality of the construction materials used. Implementing the recommendations could have stopped the collapse of the building,’ he said.
Shamim Bosunia, the current president of the Institution of Engineers who was a member on the inquiry committee, however said that he was less certain whether the committee recommendations, if implemented, would have prevented the future Rana Plaza collapse.
‘The recommendations did not state specifically that the BGMEA would assess the quality of the construction, which was the main cause of the Rana Plaza collapse,’ he said. ‘And it was the building owner, rather than the factory owners, who was building the extra floors. The BGMEA seems more concerned with companies that build their own factories, not ones that rent space.’
On 12 April 2012, two days after the collapse of the Spectrum factory, the BGMEA set up an inquiry committee under the chairmanship of Md Ali Azim Khan, who was then also chairman of the organisation’s standing committee on safety measures.
Two months later, the BGMEA published its report pointing to three main causes of the collapse of the Spectrum building — the overall poor quality of materials and construction, deviation from the original design drawings and specifications, and lack of proper supervision.
The report set out a ‘future action plan’ requiring the ‘appointment of a professional consultant highly experienced in the structural design of multi-storey buildings.’
The plan stated that this consultant should be responsible for collecting ‘structural drawings and design and soil investigation report of the existing factories’ and checking the ‘soundness of the structural design of the factories with regard to respective location, site condition and nature of occupancy (existing loading condition).’
With this information, the recommendations stated, the BGMEA should then categorise factories into those that are ‘most vulnerable,’ ‘vulnerable’ and ‘safe’ according to the ‘gravity of the situation which might endanger the safety of the building.’
‘Corrective measures’ should be suggested, the report went on, for those that were vulnerable and also advice should be given ‘as to the extent of vertical extension’ permitted for those deemed to be safe buildings.
In relation to upcoming factories, the committee recommended that the ‘soundness of the structural designs’ should be checked.
BGMEA officials have admitted to New Age that none of these recommendations have been implemented.
Md Shamsul Haque, the director of engineering at the BGMEA, admitted that he was not a structural design specialist and that the senior engineer he replaced who had been employed at the BGMEA at the time of the Spectrum building collapse was also an ordinary civil engineer.
‘Before Rana Plaza, we just checked papers. New companies were asked for copies of the structural plan and we checked with the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh that the name of the engineer was an approved structural engineer. That is all we did,’ he said.
‘We did not get soil reports and we did not do any site visits,’ Haque said, acknowledging that he had never previously seen the BGMEA’s inquiry report on the Spectrum factory collapse.
‘Until Rana Plaza, the main job of the engineering cell was the construction of the BGMEA’s own buildings. In the six months before Rana Plaza, I was very busy with industrial parks for the RMG centre.’ he said.
He said that now things were different. ‘The BGMEA had increased the number of graduate engineers it employs from 3 to 9 and they undertake visual inspections of buildings.’
BGMEA vice-president Shahidullah confirmed that none of the committee recommendations had been implemented until now.
‘Until after Rana Plaza, the BGMEA had no building safety cell. Now, there is,’ he said. ‘We have closed down 19 factories in Dhaka and Chittagong out of a total 143 inspected. Some have been closed because the buildings are vulnerable and others because the generator is located on top floors,’ he said.
When asked how one should view the BGMEA as it had failed to implement its own recommendations after the Spectrum building collapse that, if implemented, might have stopped the Rana Plaza collapse, Azim said, ‘They should have done it. I have to be careful about what I say about the organisation as I belong to the BGMEA. I was elected just a month before Rana Plaza. I never saw the report.’

Rana Plaza Building Collapse: Lack of building law enforcement

In the greater Dhaka area, it is the Capital Development Authority (known as RAJUK, from its bangla acronym) which has responsibility for enforcement of building laws and regulations. As this article shows, however, it has totally failed in this task.

New Age: Rajuk issues only six occupancy certificates (13 May 2013)

A provision in the 2008 building rules, aimed at ensuring that only legally compliant buildings are allowed to be used or lived in, has been ignored over the past five years by both the developers and the government agency responsible for its implementation.
The law requires that none should occupy a building until the developer who originally applied to Rajdhani Unnayan Katripakkha, the capital development authority, obtains an ‘occupancy’ certificate which reflects that the building was constructed in keeping with the general construction guidelines and in compliance with its approved plan.
Inquiries by New Age, however, have revealed that in about five years since the 2008 act came into force, only six buildings out of about 20,000 to 25,000 that have been authorised to be built, have obtained this certificate.
This disclosure came two weeks after the collapse of the Rana Plaza building at Savar which till Sunday left more than 1,100 people dead.
The currently ignored provision in the 2008 rules was enacted to ensure that illegal constructions such as the Rana Plaza building could not be built or at least would not be used until changes were made.
In the past week, New Age revealed that the architectural plans of Rana Plaza were based on the assumption that the building would be used for commercial, not industrial, purpose and that it would be only six-storey high.
Section 18 of the Dhaka Metropolitan Building (Construction, Development, Conservation and Demolition) Rules 2008 states that after a building is completed partially or wholly, the developer should obtain ‘an occupancy certificate to use or live in that building’. It states that as part of the application, the owner must submit the architectural design permitted by the authority, the structural design and all designs relating to building services.
Another document which needs to be submitted is a ‘completion’ report which requires that architects, engineers and others engaged in the work certify that they have ‘supervised’ the construction of the building.
Section 19 of the act then states that after receiving the completion report, they ‘must visit the building within 15 days’ in the presence of the applicant and other technical people involved in the construction.
New Age has spoken to all five of Rajuk’s authorised officers whose responsibilities include undertaking these visits and providing occupancy certificates to developers, and between them are responsible for some 4,000 to 5,000 new buildings each year.
Four of the officers said that they had not yet provided a single occupancy certificate and were not aware that their predecessors had done so since May 2008 when the rules began to apply.
Afsar Uddin, responsible for Dhaka’s main business area of Motijheel and also Narayanganj, said, ‘I have not given any certificates. We have received one application and this is being checked by an inspector.’
‘We have given notices to companies that they must obtain these certificates and have also given letters to the utility companies dealing with water and electricity saying that they should not provide services unless they have a certificate,’ he added
Pervez Khadem, the officer responsible for Uttara, said, ‘We have had six applications and inspectors are looking into them. I have not yet given an occupancy certificate. People are not aware that they need occupancy certificates and we are now trying to inform them.’
Sukamal Chakma, the officer responsible for Gulshan, Banani, Baridhara, Tejgaon and Mohakhali who has been only working in the job for a month, said that since he started he ‘had no applications for occupancy certificates and there were no outstanding applications in process.’
He argued that it was important that these certificates were sought by developers.
‘It is important to get these certificates to ensure safety of buildings. To get the certificate is one kind of measure that means that the developer has built the buildings in keeping with the construction rules 2008.’
Helal Ahmed, who has been in his postition since September 2012, also said that he had not given any certificates but that in the past few months he had received ‘10 to 12 applications, but they have not submitted sufficient papers and we have yet to visit them.’
Md Animur Rahman was the only authorised officer who said that he had issued some occupancy certificates.
‘I have given six occupation certificates in the past six months. We have about 10 applications which we received in the past few months,’ he told New Age.
The Rajuk chairman, Nurul Huda, admitted that the provisions had not been enforced but said that the government body was now trying to enforce it.
‘This was in rules but not practiced previously… however, in the past year, we arranged several meetings with service providers dealing with water, electricity and gas, in which we gave instruction not to give any service without occupancy certificate,’ he said.
‘Notices should be given to all developers that they have to take clearance through occupancy certificates and then they will get permission for utility service connections.’
He blamed the shortage of manpower as the ‘main reason’ why it had not been enforced.
‘In 2010, after the Dhaka Area Plan was agreed, we have submitted a proposal to the ministry for technical manpower to provide all services but it took two years and a half for the government to approve it. Six months ago, we sent to the ministry recruitment rules for them to approve, but they still have not done it.’
Mobasshar Hossain, the president of the Institute of Architects, said that obtaining the occupancy certificate from Rajuk was crucial to ensuring that buildings in Dhaka followed the law.
‘Actually if you want to control the building rules and [determine] whether [they have been] implemented by developer, owner, architect and engineer, the occupancy certificate is the most important thing,’ he said.
‘Before occupying the building and getting all public utilities, the developer has to get an occupancy certificate’ and for that a Rajuk officer ‘should visit the building and ensure that rules have not been violated.’
He argued that if utility bodies refused to give connections until an occupancy certificate was obtained from Rajuk, ‘there would be no violations’ as others would be deterred.
‘But the utility bodies continue to give services even though there is no occupancy certificate,’ he added.

Rana Plaza building collapse: Designed for 'commercial use'

Why did the building collapse? These articles look at how architects planned the building for commercial use but it was used for industrial use.

New Age: We were asked to design a commercial mall: architect (4 May 2013)

The eight-storey building housing five garment factories which collapsed late last month killing more than 500 workers was only designed as a six-store commercial building, New Age can reveal.
Engineering plans of the building submitted to the local administration in 2004 and used by the army and fire brigade at the site of the rescue in recent days show that the ‘use’ of the building was ‘commercial’ and not industrial.
The architect who designed the original plans of the building has also confirmed to New Age that he designed ‘a commercial shopping mall’ with floors divided between shopping and office use.
The disclosure comes as the focus of attention of government authorities is moving to determining the cause of the collapse of the building and trying to prevent another such
disaster.
Engineering and architectural experts say that changing the nature of the occupancy of the building and the unplanned construction of two more floors were likely to be amongst the main causes of the building collapse.
They, however, also point to the poor quality of the construction as a factor.
Copies of the engineering plans, which New Age has seen, show that apart from a ‘semi-basement floor,’ the building was designed to have a ground floor and five further floors with a total floor area of 11,580 square metres.
They also state that the ‘nature of occupancy’ was ‘commercial.’
The architect who signed the architectural plans submitted to the municipality also told New Age that he was employed to make a building for office and shops.
ATM Masood Reza, an architect working for the Khulna-based firm Vastukalpa Consultants, said that his firm was ‘asked to design a commercial shopping mall. There were [to be] 3 or 4 storeys for a market and then [two] upper storeys were for offices.’
‘We did not design it for industrial use. At that time, the garment belt was not there. There was no demand for industrial buildings,’ he said. ‘If I had known that it was to be an industrial building, as per the rules, I would have taken other measures for the building.’
Massood, who also teaches architecture in Khulna University, said that in 2004 his firm was employed by a developer, called Tonmoy Housing Ltd, to act as the architects for the building. Both the developer and his firm were, however, then sacked by the building owner.
‘We worked with Tonmoy Housing, not the land owner, and we only did the preliminary design and after that, the land owner expelled the developer and as well as us as we worked with the developer.’
He said that he did the preliminary drawing in 2004 and the firm was ‘removed towards the end of 2005 or early 2006.’
Masood’s claim that his firm was originally employed by developers is supported by the plans which contain the name of Tonmoy Housing Ltd, with an address of ‘Savar Bus Stand, Savar.’
Experts see that the change in the use of a building is likely to have been one of the factors behind the building’s collapse.
‘The problem is that when you design a commercial building, the load calculation is very different,’ Mujibur Rahman, head of the civil engineering department in Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, told New Age. ‘For industrial use, one needs to consider more loads, considering weight and vibration of machines, so that is the difference. For commercial use, [you] don’t consider machines.’
‘It is difficult to give a quantitative difference between loads required for industrial and for commercial use, but it is significantly different because of the machines and vibration and particularly if generators are on top floors, you need larger dimensions of beams and columns,’ he added.
Mobasshar Hossain, president of the Institute of Architects, supported this view.
‘Change of occupancy is a very dangerous thing’ he said. ‘Your residence is designed for residential purpose but suddenly you change the occupancy for factories. Yes, you can do it, but then [you] have to strengthen the building so that it can take the load of industrial machinery, vibration and movement of a good number of human beings.’
Changing occupancy is, however, one of a number of reasons for the collapse, the expert said.
Mehedi Ahmed Ansary, professor of civil engineering at BUET, said that apart from the change of occupancy, in his view, ‘the main thing is that [the building] was extended up to nine storeys, without, as I understand it, telling anybody.’
‘And there may be other issues about the quality of the construction of the column and beam,’ he added.
Mobassher, from the Institute of Architects, also focused on the poor material used in the construction of the building.
‘I collected the material of the slag and column,’ he told New Age. ‘I could see that the concrete used in the columns was not mixed properly. It was manually mixed. The strongest part of the building should be the column.’
A police officer involved in the investigation told New Age that he had not heard the name of the architect Masood Reza in the context of the building collapse.
‘Tomorrow, we shall collect the documents from the municipality,’ said Masud Hossain, the additional superintendent of Dhaka district police.

Daily Telegraph: Bangladesh: Rana Plaza architect says building was never meant for factories (3 May)

The architect of the eight storey building that collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing more than 500 people, has spoken out for the first time, telling The Daily Telegraph it was planned for shops and offices – but not factories.
Four factories were installed at Rana Plaza regardless – one of which supplied Primark and Bonmarche, the British clothing retailers – and two unplanned storeys were also added, helping to precipitate its collapse.
Massood Reza, the architect who drew up the plan for Rana Plaza in 2004, said he was "asked to design a commercial shopping mall" with "three or four storeys for a market and then the upper two storeys were for offices".
He said: "We did not design it for industrial use. At that time the garment belt was not there. There was no demand for industrial buildings. If I had known that it was to be an industrial building, as per the rules I would have taken other measures for the building."
Other architects stressed the risks involved in placing factories inside a building designed only for shops and offices. The structure may not be strong enough to bear the weight and vibration of heavy machinery.
The government's official investigation on Friday suggested that generators placed on the roof to power the factories – along with the vibration of sewing machines used to make garments – all combined to trigger the building's collapse.
"Change of occupancy is a very dangerous thing," said Mobasshar Hossain, the president of the Bangladesh Institute of Architects. "Your residence is designed for residential purposes, but suddenly you change the occupancy for factories. You can do it, but you then have to strengthen the building so it can take the load of industrial machinery, vibration and the movement of a good number of human beings."
The original plan for Rana Plaza, seen by The Daily Telegraph, duly describes the building's purpose as "com" for "commercial", not industrial.
Primark has declined to say what it knew about Rana Plaza before the disaster. Bonmarche has insisted that it was unaware of any reason to doubt the building's safety.
The Walt Disney Company has announced that it will stop placing supply contracts in Bangladesh and Pakistan because of the safety record of both countries, although this decision predated the latest disaster.
Nonetheless, as the death toll from the worst industrial disaster in Bangladeshi history reached 507 on Friday, the government sought to play the tragedy down.
"I don't think it is really serious – it's an accident," said Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, the finance minister, adding: "The steps that we have taken in order to make sure that it doesn't happen, they are quite elaborate and I believe that it will be appreciated by all."

Rana Plaza building collapse: Compliance codes

Could the buyers involved in purchasing from any one of the five garment factories based in the Rana Plaza building have done more to stop the building collapsing? This is a matter of the quality of the compliance regimes set up by the buyers. Here is an article about how compliance codes organised by different buyers might have prevented it.

Daily Telegraph: British firms did not follow new safety regime for clothing production (2 May, 2013)

Primark and Bonmarche, the British clothing retailers, failed to join other companies in introducing safety rules that would have barred any purchases from a factory inside the Bangladeshi building that collapsed last week.
The worst industrial disaster in the country’s history has officially claimed 501 lives, although hundreds more are still missing.
Primark, which has 161 shops in Britain, and Bonmarche, with 360 outlets, have acknowledged that a garment factory inside the now ruined building was part of their supply chain.
This business, known as New Wave Ltd, was one of four factories located inside Rana Plaza.
In January, J.C. Penney, an American clothing retailer which also buys from Bangladesh introduced new rules for its supply chain. Jenefa Jabbar, the company’s regional social responsibility director, said: “Since 1 January this year, if any of our manufacturers operated above a market, worked in a building where there were other garment manufacturers, or where the building did not have permission to be built with the number of floors that it had, we stopped buying from them.”
Rana Plaza broke all of these requirements. The building housed a market and four garment factories. It also had more storeys than were contained in the original plan, helping to explain the structural weakness that lay behind the building’s sudden collapse.
”Because of the three conditions we have set, our companies would not be doing business with any of the companies from the Rana Plaza, which in fact broke all three,” added Ms Jabbar. Wal-Mart, the US retailer, also introduced similar requirements for its Bangladeshi supply chain.
But Primark and Bonmarche did not do so. Had they taken this step, no factory in Rana Plaza would have been eligible to join their supply chain. Primark declined to comment yesterday. A Bonmarche spokesman said: “Our suppliers are contracted to standards specified by us in our supplier manual which are in line with retail industry standards.”
When Rana Plaza collapsed last Wednesday, the building was eight storeys high. However, it was originally planned to have six storeys, said Khandaker Shabbir Ahmed, a professor of architecture at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, who had access to the building’s plans while advising the rescue teams after the disaster.
“The only plan that was available from the local administration was for a six storey building with a semi-basement. There were no plans available for the other two floors that were built,” he said. “In order to build two more floors legally, there should have been plans in the first place for the other two floors as well.”
Primark declined to say if it was aware that Rana Plaza had more than the permitted number of storeys. Bonmarche said it had “no knowledge of the Rana Plaza safety issues, prior to this terrible tragedy”.
Emdadul Islam, the chief engineer of the Capital Development Authority in Dhaka, said that when Rana Plaza was on the drawing board, the prospective owners did not get the right permission for its construction. “The owners did not come to us at the capital development authority to get permission. They went instead to local authority. The local authority did not have the mandated responsibility to give this permission,” said Mr Islam.
He questioned whether Rana Plaza was ever designed to house garment factories. “My assumption is that it was built for residential or offices and then lent out for the RMG [ready-made garments] sector,” said Mr Islam, adding that the introduction of factories would have caused “huge overloading” of the building’s structure.
The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), which includes Primark, said yesterday that its members would adopt a Bangladesh fire and building safety plan to prevent future disasters. This would provide for factory improvements to “meet an agreed minimum standard”. Peter McAllister, head of the ETI, said: “We are committed to driving real, sustainable change for workers by tackling the chronic, widespread health and safety issues.”
Clare Lissaman, from the Ethical Fashion Forum, urged Western retailers to sign the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement, which provides for the independent inspection of all factories in the supply chain, monitored by the workers themselves. “This puts the workers first and foremost and helps them to say what isn’t right,” she said. “You need a collaborative, worker-centric approach.”

Rana Plaza building collapse: Lack of safety equipment

Linked to the issue of the government deciding against seeking international assistance, was the lack of proper equipment available to the rescue services, and their inability to use what was available.

New Age: Donor-provided search, rescue cameras barely used (1 May 2013)

Specialised search and rescue cameras provided by the UNDP to the country’s fire service department three years ago were barely used by its officers involved in
the rescue of those trapped under the collapsed Rana Plaza building, New Age has learnt.
In 2010, as part of the UNDP-managed Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme, 16 thermal cameras and 20 search cameras were given to the fire service department at a total cost of Tk 22,711,026 or $291,000.
Major Mohammad Zihadul Islam, the director of training, planning and development at the fire service department told New Age that the nature of the ‘pancake’ collapse of Rana Plaza made it very difficult to use the search camera which was attached onto a telescopic stick that could be put through small gaps.
‘The spaces that my search and rescue team found [inside the collapsed building] were very narrow and [they] could only pass through by crawling. Rescuers in those spaces faced a little difficulty in using search vision cameras,’ he said.
He said that the camera was too bulky for efficient use since the rescuers were already carrying torches and oxygen canisters. He also complained that there was no sufficient light.
‘We could not take all accessories for the camera, but where possible we used it,’ he said.
Zihad also said that the thermal cameras, which could detect human life by the distinct heat coming from the bodies, were not useful.
‘In this particular place [we] did not have enough scope to use this camera,’ he said. He also said that the camera had malfunctioned when used inside the wreckage.
‘We had malfunctioning of this camera, though certainly the whole machine did not collapse. When we took the camera outside we found it effective, but inside the building in some places, we could use it, but not in others,’ he added.
The UN humanitarian affairs adviser in Dhaka, Gershon Brandao, however, questioned the reasons given by the fire brigade for the lack of use of the equipment.
Acknowledging that he did not know exactly what cameras the fire brigade had been given, he said, ‘If you do have search cameras, their size should not be an issue. This is exactly the equipment that is required [for search and rescue].’
‘It can go into any small hole. The size of the camera is not the reason,’ he claimed.
The humanitarian adviser blamed the lack of skills of fire brigade officers in using the equipment.
‘I think [the fire brigade] have given a wrong assessment. Lack of skills on how to use this equipment is likely to be a factor,’ he said.
Dr ASM Maksud Kamal, the professor and chair of the department of disaster science and management at Dhaka University, who had worked on the UN project as the urban risk reduction specialist at the time the equipment was procured, told New Age, ‘We did not give them any training on this equipment, nor did we receive any request from them for training.’
According to Dr Puji Pujion, the project manager of the current programme, 13 senior fire service officers have received search and rescue training outside the country and have come back as ‘master trainers’.
He said that as a result of the training that these senior officers had subsequently given to their junior colleagues, he thought that ‘35 to 40 senior officers had working knowledge of the use of the equipment.’
He, however, acknowledged that these people were not likely to be the ones involved in the hands on rescue attempt.
The fire service’s director of training, planning and development admitted to New Age that his officers ‘just have working knowledge of the machines.’
‘We have had no organised training on the particular equipment… Maybe we will go for specialised training,’ he said.
He, however, denied that any lack of training was the reason why the equipment was found not to be useful.
‘If we had taken specialist training earlier it would have been better, but for this particular disaster, the area by default was restricting the use of the camera. For this particular incident any lack of previous training on this equipment did not hamper the operation,’ he said.
The UN humanitarian adviser refused to be drawn into whether lives could have been saved had the specialist equipment been used, but said, ‘The more sophisticated the equipment, the increased likelihood of saving lives. But reality can be different.’
The UNDP managed Comprehensive Disaster Management in two phases has been funded by a combination of foreign donors. The $27 million first phase which ended in 2009 was funded by the United Kingdom, European Community and UNDP itself, while the $ 76 million second phase is funded by six international donors – with UK being the biggest contributer – as well as the government of Bangladesh.
Other equipment provided by the project has been used by the fire service in the search and rescue efforts. In addition 200 volunteers trained by the UN programme have been involved in rescue efforts.

Daily Telegraph: Bangladesh discarded UK-funded search cameras in rescue mission (30 Apr 2013)

Bangladesh discarded UK-backed state-of-the-art search equipment which could have saved people trapped in the Dhaka building collapse, the Telegraph has learned.
Thermal imaging and telescopic search cameras designed to find people trapped in collapsed buildings were given to Bangladesh in a UN aid package for disaster management partly funded with £18 million pounds from Britain's Department for International Development.
The disclosure raises fresh questions over the handling of the biggest industrial disaster in the country's history and whether more lives could have been saved. According to the police 384 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of Dhaka's Rana Plaza building but up to 900 are still missing, presumed dead in the wreckage.
Bangladesh has faced strong criticism for rejecting emergency assistance from the UN and Britain but yesterday [TUES] said its handling of the crisis had been "exemplary."
Home Secretary Mustak Ahmed said his government was grateful to Britain for its offer, but felt it could manage alone. "The need for immediate foreign assistance was not felt because our rescue operation has been sufficient and exemplary. Our army, firefighters, police and volunteers did a very good job. We also have enough equipment," he said.
But sophisticated thermal and search cameras given under a UN disaster management programme were discarded by commanders at Rana Plaza who said they were not appropriate for the conditions at the site.
Bangladesh received 20 search cameras, valued at £110,000 and 16 thermal image cameras, worth £77,000, in 2010 by the UN's Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme, but while senior officers received some general training in their use, UN advisors said they believe those on the ground searching for survivors had not.
Major Zihad, the fire service's training director said his rescuers could not use the equipment because the gaps between concrete pillars were too narrow and the cavities too dark. The tangle of concrete prevented his men using the thermal cameras to find survivors. In any case his men already had their hands full with torches and oxygen bottles and could not carry them.
"The situation did not permit. We have used the search vision camera in some places but because the collapse was pancake type, ten stories came to 3 stories, there were very narrow spaces and [my men] could only pass through with crawling. Those spaces faced a little difficulty using search vision camera. The cameras should be more handy. My rescuers went zig zag. The could barely carry oxygen and search light," he said.
The thermal camera had not worked properly inside the rubble, but functioned correctly outside, he added.
But according to Gerson Brandao, the UN's Humanitarian Affairs advisor in Bangladesh, the equipment was right for a building collapse and could have saved lives had it been used correctly.
"If equipment has been procured, there should be trained people to use the equipment. If the equipment has been donated and if they have not used the equipment they need to be explain why it is not used. I think they have given a wrong assessment. Lack of skills on how to use this equipment is likely to be a factor. The more sophisticated the equipment, the increased likelihood of saving lives. But reality can be different," he said.
Dr Puji Pujiono, the Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme's project manager, suggested that 30 to 40 senior officers trained in using the equipment had not passed on their knowledge to the rescuers on the ground at Rana Plaza, where conditions were not under control and members of the public were able to wander around the rescue site.
"The one who goes in inside typically is not a commanding officer. Those that do are untrained. There were no senior people going into the holes. This is Bangladesh," he said.

Rana Plaza building collapse: International aid not sought

One of the key issues following the Rana Plaza building collapse tragedy was the decision by the Bangladesh government not to ask for international assistance. The story was broken in the Daily Telegraph and New Age, and the articles are below

New Age: Govt rejects int’l search, rescue assistance (29 April 2013)

The government has rejected offers of international search and rescue assistance, including a formal offer of sending a team of specialists from Britain.
The offers were made within 36 hours after the collapse of the Rana Plaza building at Savar which has so far led to the death of 378 people, mostly apparel workers employed by the five clothing factories operating in the building.
The offers followed an informal assessment that even though as part of its donor-funded project, the UN had provided equipment and training for the Bangladesh fire brigade and army on dealing with collapsed buildings, an effective rescue of the magnitude of Rana Plaza would require outside assistance.
One Western diplomat in Dhaka told New Age that at the time, ‘The UN had emphasised the urgent need for technical search and rescue support’ and ‘that the window in which this type of intervention will be effective [would be] closing fast.’
A senior United Nations official confirmed to New Age that shortly after the building had collapsed, the UN’s humanitarian adviser met up with government officials and discussed whether the government would require that a team of experts be brought to Dhaka through the UN’s International Search and Rescue Advisory Group.
Known as INSARAG, this is a network of disaster-prone and disaster-responding countries and organisations dedicated to urban search and rescue and operational field coordination.
Its web site says, ‘The INSARAG community acknowledges the importance of providing rapid, professional urban search and rescue support during disasters that result in structural collapse.’
The UN official, however, said that an offer which would have brought into Bangladesh specialist rescuers and equipment, and possibly sniffer dogs, was rejected by the government.
Diplomats told New Age that despite the rebuke, the international community still wanted to offer support and many embassies including that of the United States informed the government that they were willing to provide expertise or other kinds of assistance.
Subsequently, the UK government on Thursday, the day after the collapse, made a specific formal offer to the home and foreign ministries to provide ‘technical advisory support aimed at addressing the apparent gap in technical coordination capacity.’
The exact nature of the support that was offered was not known but one Western diplomat said that ‘due to the given historical reluctance [of the Bangladesh government] against accepting international assistance, the offer was sufficiently low key to be accepted by the government.’
However, even though the offer was ‘calibrated’ to be as acceptable as possible to the government ministers, it was rejected as senior civil servants said, that ‘rescue operations would be shortly called off.’
Rescue operations have, in fact, continued for a further 72 hours.
A spokesperson for Britain’s Department for International Development confirmed that it had offered assistance which Bangladesh had rejected: “The UK offered specialist technical advice to the government of Bangladesh to support the search and rescue operation at the collapsed building in Savar. The Bangladesh government has confirmed their decision to decline this offer.”
CQK Mustaq Ahmed, a senior secretary in Bangladesh’s ministry of home affairs, Sunday night said that he had heard that his minister had rejected an offer but did not know about it directly.
‘Maybe the offer has been decided by the minister [that we do] not need that. I don’t know, but I hear that he said there is no need. If there were immediate machines of course it might have helped, I don’t know if they could line it up in two or three days,’ he said. It was ‘not useful’ to speculate on whether more had died because of the decision, he added.
Babul Miah, deputy secretary at the foreign ministry, said that he was not aware of an offer or rejection and did not believe that such an offer would have been dismissed. ‘I don’t believe that if the international organisations offered technical support that the government would reject it. It shouldn’t happen,’ he said.

New Age: UN offered expert rescue team within hours after building collapse (30 April 2013)

Three hours after the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar, a senior official of the United Nations spoke to the director general of the national fire service reminding him that the government could ask for specialist search and rescue teams to come to Dhaka.
‘Three to four hours after the disaster I phoned the director general of the Fire Brigade, and reminded him that the government was a member of the network of countries in the UN’s International Search and Rescue Advisory Group and it could ask a specialist team to come to Dhaka.’ said Gerson Brandao, the Humanitarian Affairs Adviser.
On Sunday, New Age reported that the government had rejected offers of international search and rescue assistance, including a formal offer of sending a team of specialists from Britain.
The UN Humanitarian Adviser said that it was not appropriate for him to suggest more strongly to the fire service director general that the government seek outside assistance, as he was ‘confident that the people on [the collapse] site would be in a better position to suggest what assistance was required.’
‘The director general said that he would consult his seniors, that [the government] promised to look into it, and that he would get back to me about whether they needed additional assistance,’ Gerson added.
INSARAG is a network of disaster-prone and disaster-responding countries and organisations dedicated to urban search and rescue and operational field coordination. Bangladesh is a member.
‘These are a group of people who are experts, they have dogs, micro-cameras and other equipment that we do not have in Bangladesh. They would normally bring a scanner that can detect body heat under rubble,’ Gershon said.
He explained that he had discussed the issue with the fire service director general as he was the focal point of the UN INSRAC in Bangladesh.
The UN official said that since there was no feedback from the government he followed up his initial call with another one on the following afternoon. ‘I understood [from that discussion] that it was still being discussed,’ he said.
When asked whether or not the matter should have been pushed more firmly by the UN, Gershon said, ‘We have absolutely put enough effort in trying to persuade the government to use international assistance. We reminded them what could be provided by INSARAG. It is the government’s decision to ask.’
Ahmed Ali, the head of the national fire service acknowledged that he had received the call from the UN Humanitarian Affairs Adviser.
‘The ministry of disaster management said that if some country can give us equipment without manpower, we could just take the equipment,’ he said.
‘But I told them that this would waste time because if we got equipment without manpower, we would need to be trained to use the equipment. This was the kind of discussion that was happening. And then it became a little late to bring them. The ministry acted late.’

Daily Telegraph: UK Rescue Aid rejected after Dhaka building collapse (28 April 2013)

Bangladesh rejected offers of search and rescue teams from Britain and other countries to free people trapped during last week's catastrophic factory collapse in Dhaka, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
More than 370 people died when the eight-story Rana Plaza building crumbled into a vast pile of rubble on Wednesday. Teams of ill-equipped local rescuers have been sifting through mountains of wreckage for survivors.
Foreign offers to provide experienced disaster rescue teams, which could potentially have saved more lives, were turned down last week, diplomatic sources said.
Documents seen by The Daily Telegraph indicate both Bangladesh's foreign and home ministries rejected the offers because they feared that accepting aid would damage national pride. The documents disclose a diplomatic campaign to persuade Bangladeshi officials to accept the assistance, and "face-saving" suggestions on keeping it low-key to avoid offending Bangladeshi sensitivities.
When United Nations officials became aware of the large numbers of people trapped under the rubble, consultations were held with Western diplomats to assess whether Bangladesh had the wherewithal to mount an effective rescue operation. They decided it did not, and approached several governments, including Britain's, to identify which could send teams of rescuers and heavy lifting equipment.
"The UN has underlined that the needed search and rescue support, including the UK contribution, is available from the international community, but this has been rejected," one official said.
Instead, the rescue operation relied on local volunteers without protective clothing, many of whom wore plastic sandals. On Saturday,The Daily Telegraph disclosed how doctors delegated a volunteer garment factory worker to amputate the hand of one survivor to allow her to be rescued. Some buried workers have survived in day-time temperatures of 95F (35C) by drinking their own urine.
The government has also been criticised by the relatives of those trapped in the debris for apparently trying to end the rescue mission prematurely. Officials were due to deploy heavy machinery to clear the rubble away last week, having decided survivors would not last more than 72 hours. But after a public backlash they delayed the plan, as more people were pulled out alive and yet more cries from survivors could be heard.
A spokesman for Britain's Department for International Development confirmed it had offered "specialist technical advice" which Bangladesh had rejected.
C.Q.K Mustaq Ahmed, a senior secretary in Bangladesh's Ministry of Home Affairs, said that he had heard that his minister had rejected an offer, but did not know about it directly. "I hear that he said there is no need," Mr Ahmed said.
The owner of the building, Mohammed Sohel Rana, a youth leader of Bangladesh's ruling Awami League, was arrested in Benapole, near the border with India on Sunday. He is accused of encouraging workers to return inside the Rana Plaza despite warnings from engineers it could collapse.

Rana Plaza building collapse: The rescuers

On 24 April, the eight storey high Rana Plaza building collapsed in Savar Bangladesh - killing over 1100 workers trapped within it. Here are a couple of my articles on one extraordinary man (and there were others), who was a garment worker from a building adjacent to Rana Plaza, who ran out on hearing the sound of the collapse and immediately started to help rescue people from the wreckage.

New Age: A true Hero (April 28, 2013)

Amongst the despair of the tangled concrete slabs that was once Rana Plaza, there are rescuers about whom the description of hero is no exaggeration.
One such person is Didar Hossain.
Didar is an apparel worker employed at the factory Al Muslim next to the eight-floor Rana Plaza which on Wednesday morning at collapsed to the ground.
‘I heard a big noise from outside and we looked out and saw lots of dust,’ he told New Age. ‘We rushed out of the building. Initially, the gatekeeper would not allow us out. So we had to push the man aside.’
Faced with knowing that under the wreckage of Rana Plaza there were people just like him, Didar decided that he could be no spectator.
‘I could see that there was a narrow tunnel into the building. Everyone warned me not to go in as the building could collapse even further. I was scared to go in but I knew that if I saved one person that would be worth it,’ he said
‘There were 17 men, and I brought them out one by one. There were also four dead people. The tunnel was initially very narrow but I took apart some of the machinery and it made it a bit wider. It took me nine hours to get them out, the whole day I was working. I tied cloth around the men and dragged them out slowly one by one.’
New Age met Didar on Friday whilst interviewing 16-year-old Aanna Akhter who was in the post-operative ward of Enam Hospital at Savar. Anna had just finished telling how after more than 24 hours under the rubble in order to come out alive from the wreckage, her hand had to be amputated.
Didar was visiting Anna as he was the man who amputated her arm and was checking up on how she was.
On Thursday morning after having rescued the 17 men, Didar carried on trying to find ways into the demolished building
‘I had gone further into the building, looking for other ways to find people inside and I was calling out whether there was anyone here and then I heard a woman’s voice asking for help,’ he said, explaining how he found Aanna.
‘There were two dead bodies beside Aanna. I tried to see whether it was possible to rescue her without chopping off her hand, by moving the machinery but I was scared that if I moved any of the machinery the roof may collapse further,’ Dildar continued.
‘So I told her that the only way I can get you out is to chop your hand of, and she agreed. ‘I went out and told the doctor the situation.’
The doctor, however, did not dare to enter the concrete tunnels within the building.
‘He was too scared to go in and do it himself as he thought that the building could collapse any minute. So he told me how to do it. He gave me an injection and a surgical knife. I went back in and gave her the injection and started cutting. It took 10 minutes. It was hard. I was weeping and Anna was weeping. It hurt her a lot.’
Aanna’s rescue took four hours. It was about 2:00pm when she came out.
However, this was not the end of Didar’s heroism.
‘Later that day at a different part of the building, I found two men who had their legs stuck. I had to tell both of them that the only way I could rescue them was by cutting their legs off. They both agreed,’ he said.
‘One of the men’s legs was almost already severed. So, in fact, I could remove the leg tearing with my hands. In the other case, I used a surgical knife — again the doctor said that he was too scared to go down and do it himself. The knife was much sharper this time.’
They were, he said, both taken to Dhaka College Medical Hospital.
Since New Age met Didar on Friday, he has continued to undertake heroic acts and was involved with others in the rescue early Saturday morning of 40 more workers.
‘I am feeling weak. I have not had much sleep,’ he told New Age later on Saturday on the phone from the Rana Plaza site where despite his exhaustion he expects to spend another night seeking more survivors of the country’s worst industrial disaster.

Daily Telegraph: £45-a-month hero amputated girl's hand to save her from factory carnage

Didar Hossain arrived for a shift to make clothes for the Western high street on Wednesday. By Friday night he was hailed as a hero after rescuing 30 people from the scene of Bangladesh’s worst industrial accident.
At its most extreme, his heroics involved amputating the hand of a young girl to salvage her from the wreckage of the Rana Plaza, the eight-storey Dhaka factory building in Bangladesh which collapsed killing more than 300.
Aanna Akhtar, the young girl he saved told The Daily Telegraph she knows she is one of the lucky ones.
More than 300 have now been confirmed dead and at least 400 more are still missing.
Ms Akhtar said she had started a job just three weeks ago making trouser pockets on the sixth floor, where New Wave Style Ltd makes cheap clothes for chain stores like Primark and Bonmarche.
“I could not get it out," she said from her bed at Enam Medical College Hospital. "There were a lot of people with me at first. Many were saved because the roof rested on the machines. We all shouted for help.
"There were about ten of us together. Many of the other people were able to escape. The men who left said that they would get someone to help me, but no-one came. I shouted for help, and I wept and wept. I thought I wouldn’t get out alive. I spent the whole night there inside the building by myself. I was very scared.
"Beside me was the dead body of the colleague I worked with, I could see the blood coming out of her,”
She spent the night contorted into a crouching position with her arm aloft and hand trapped. In the morning, as her hopes of survival began to fade, she heard Didar Hossain calling out through the dark crevices. “I shouted back ’please help me brother’. He told me he could only help me if he cut off my hand and I let him. He then went out and came back with a knife and an injection. I was given an injection first. He had to chop of my hand to get me out,” she said.
Bangladeshi volunteers and rescue workers are pictured at the scene of the collapse (AFP)
Mr Hossain, 28, who is married with two young children, had been working as a £45 a week machine operator at the al-Muslim factory opposite, when the Rana Plaza building collapsed. He ran out immediately, quickly found a tunnel inside the rubble, and began searching for survivors.
Over the next nine hours, he pulled 17 men to safety and retrieved four of the dead, he said. It was not until the following morning that he heard Aanna Akhtar’s cry for help.
“I heard a woman’s voice asking for help at about 10 am. I found her. There were two dead bodies beside her. I tried to see whether it was possible to rescue her without chopping off her hand, by moving the machinery, but I was scared that if I moved any of the machinery the roof may collapse further. So I told her that the only way I can get you out is to chop off your hand and she agreed,” he explained.
He went back outside ask a doctor, who was too afraid to enter the rubble, for his advice. He returned with an injection and a surgical knife, he said, and as he carried out the surgery, both he and his patient cried. “I went back in and gave her the injection and started cutting. The knife did not seem to be that sharp. It was hard. I was weeping and Aanna was weeping. It hurt her a lot. The whole rescue took 4 hours,” he said.
He had been scared to go into the debris at first, he said, but felt compelled. “I could see that there was a narrow tunnel into the building.
Everyone warned me not to go in, as the building could collapse even further. I was scared to go in, but I knew that if I saved one person that would be worth it,” he said.
Aanna Hossain was one of 36 people he had rescued and yesterday, as they recalled their tearful ordeal, she said his bravery had saved her life. “I feel terrible about my hand, but I am still alive,” she said.