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Bangladesh Garment Factory Explosion Leaves 10 Dead | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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A Bangladeshi rescue worker walks through rubble and debris at a garment factory in Gazipur July 3, 2017, after an explosion at the factory on the outskirts of Dhaka. (AFP)


In the latest in a series of incidents that highlight the safety conditions at Bangladesh workplaces, ten workers were killed in a boiler explosion at a garment factory, union leaders said Tuesday.

The boiler explosion on Monday night occurred at a plant of Multifabs Limited, a Bangladeshi company on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka.

Fifty people were injured in the blast.

Local police chief Aminul Islam said the search for more victims was ongoing. It was not clear how many remained missing. According to relatives, some six people were missing.

It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion. Authorities have ordered an investigation.

The Multifabs Limited supplies knitted apparel to clients in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Spain, Netherlands and Britain, including to Littlewoods, one of Britain’s oldest retail brands.

The company said the plant was functioning well and the boiler, procured from Germany, had just been serviced. The factory had been shut for 10 days for the Eid period at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and was being readied to resume operations from Tuesday.

The company had undergone mandatory independent safety inspections as it supplies to brands that are signatories to the Bangladesh Accord on fire and building safety, an independent, legally binding framework set up after the Rana Plaza collapse.

Demanding more effective implementation of regulations put in place after the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster that killed more than 1,100 people, workers’ unions have called for zero tolerance to such lapses in safety.

“There can be no negotiations on worker safety and no tolerance for such accidents,” said Amirul Haque Amin, president of the National Garment Workers Federation, seven of whose members were among the over 50 injured in the factory blast.

“After Rana Plaza, the coming together of various stakeholders has brought in better regulation in the industry but casualties in such accidents are still on the higher side.”

Bangladesh’s garment-making industry, the biggest in the world after China’s, came under scrutiny after the collapse of the eight-storey Rana Plaza factory complex and a fire at a garment factory in 2012 that killed 112 workers.

“Implementation of various programs since Rana Plaza have been uneven and this accident is a reminder that there has to be greater capacity building on ground,” said Raisul Islam Khan of UNI Global Union, a federation of trade unions.

Bangladesh’s labor department needs to be strengthened, labor inspectors better qualified and more local initiatives are needed to plug the gaps, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Campaigners say the progress in fixing problems in the supply chain has been slow in the industry that employs 4 million people and generates 80 percent of Bangladesh’s export earnings.

They have criticized many retailers for failing to improve working conditions – with long hours, low pay, poor safety standards and not being allowed to form trade unions common complaints from garment workers.

“The accident shows that process started after Rana Plaza is far from over and reforms need to be expedited,” said Amin.