Bangladesh factory collapse blamed on swampy ground and heavy machinery

Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 May 2013 18.52 BST

The defects and errors that led to the world's deadliest garment-industry accident include the swampy ground the Rana Plaza was built on, the "extremely poor quality" construction materials and the massive, vibrating equipment operating when the eight-story building collapsed, a committee appointed by Bangladesh's government has concluded.

The committee recommended life prison sentences for the owners of the building and the five garment factories that operated there, though the charges they currently face carry a maximum seven-year term. Their report, submitted to the government on Wednesday, says nothing about the role an inadequate regulatory system played in the 24 April collapse, which left more than 1,100 people dead.

The disaster highlighted the hazardous working conditions in Bangladesh's £13bn garment industry and the lack of safety for millions of workers who are paid as little as £25 a month. The 1,127 killed at Rana Plaza in the Dhaka suburb of Savar are among at least 1,800 Bangladesh garment-industry workers killed in fires or building collapses since 2005.

The investigating committee, appointed by the interior ministry, found that the ground Rana Plaza was built on was unfit for a multi-story building. "A portion of the building was constructed on land which had been a body of water before and was filled with rubbish," committee head Khandker Mainuddin Ahmed said. He said the land had been swampy with shallow water.

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