Inspections highlight safety risks at Bangladesh garment factories

BERLIN - Initial inspections of Bangladesh garment factories organized after the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex have found safety problems including overloaded ceilings, exposed cables and locked fire escapes, an industry-backed group said on Monday.

 

Working conditions in the $22-billion industry have been under scrutiny since the April, 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza in which more than 1,100 workers were killed. A November 2012 fire at another factory also resulted in 112 deaths.

 

Rana Plaza, the world's most deadly industrial accident since the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, has prompted Western brands to pledge to cooperate to improve working conditions, but inspections of Bangladesh's 5,600 factories have been slow to get under way.

 

More than 150 clothing brands and retailers, including the world's top fashion chains Inditex and H&M, have joined the Accord for Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, which announced results of 10 initial inspections.

 

Brad Loewen, chief safety inspector for the Accord, said two factories had been temporarily closed in the last week after serious structural issues were uncovered, although work was allowed to continue after overloading was reduced.

 

"We have been getting great cooperation," Loewen told a webcast presentation ahead of the publication of the inspection reports planned in Dhaka on Tuesday. "We trust that will continue."

 

Rana Plaza was an eight-storey building sited on swampy ground without correct permits, where more than 3,000 workers - most of them young women - continued to labor even after cracks were noticed on pillars a day before the collapse.

 

Rock-bottom wages and trade deals with Western countries have helped make Bangladesh the world's second-largest garment exporter after China, with 60 percent of its clothes going to Europe and 23 percent to the United States.

 

Four contracted engineering firms and 25 staff engineers plan to inspect the 1,500 factories used by the Accord brands by the end of August, starting with the highest-risk buildings with more than five floors. — Reuters