The death toll following the collapse of a building last month in Bangladesh has crossed 800, becoming the country’s worst-ever industrial disaster. Rescuers are continuing to pull dozens of bodies from the rubble of the nine-storey building which collapsed outside the capital, Dhaka. Officials overseeing the disaster operation said on Wednesday that a total of 2,437 people were rescued from the ruins of the building, which housed a total of five garment factories in Savar, a suburb of the capital. “The death toll now stands at 803,” with 790 bodies recovered from the wreckage and 13 victims who died in hospital, said Lieutenant Mir Rabbi, an official in the army control room set up to coordinate disaster relief efforts. More than 3,000 garment workers were on shift when the Rana Plaza complex collapsed as they were turning out clothing for Western retailers such as Britain’s Primark and the Spanish label Mango. Cranes and bulldozers kept clearing debris as relief workers drawn from the army and fire service wore masks to ward off the smell of decomposing bodies. Brigadier General Siddiqul Alam Sikder told the AFP news agency the stench of bodies trapped in the lower floors and under beams indicated the death toll would rise.
