Building collapse in Sabhar

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Salvage work (video)

When the building collapsed in Sabhar ( Bengali : সাভার , Sābhār ; English : Savar ) about 25 km northwest of the capital Dhaka in Bangladesh on April 24, 2013, 1,135 people were killed and 2,438 injured. The accident is the worst factory accident in the country's history.

procedure

The Rana Plaza , an eight-storey reinforced concrete skeleton building , belonged to the Bangladeshi politician Sohel Rana . Several textile companies, shops and a bank were housed in the building. The previous day, April 23, cracks were found in the building. Therefore, the police forbade entry. Still, there were more than 3,000 people in the building, mostly textile workers , when the building collapsed at 9 a.m. The workers had been forced to go to work by the factory owners.

Parts of the collapsed building during the rescue work, April 27, 2013

Volunteers worked with rescue workers to rescue survivors and recover the dead. Some victims could be saved. Many relatives protested around the building, including clashes with the police.

The last survivor was rescued, slightly injured, on May 10, a good 16 days after the collapse in a gap in the ground floor or basement. She had drawn attention to herself by calling for help, had some room to move, had been able to drink water and eat cookies. Another living woman had previously been discovered on April 28; while trying to free her, however, a fire broke out and this textile worker was killed.

The owner of the building and executives of the textile companies manufacturing in it were arrested.

The 400-page report by a commission of inquiry came to the conclusion at the end of May 2013 that the main cause of the disaster was gross negligence. Among other things, inferior building materials were used to build the house, and the building land was not suitable for a multi-storey building. The report recommended life sentences for the owner of the house and for the owners of the textile mills housed in Rana Plaza.

In December 2013, 8 months after the collapse, almost 200 bodies were still unidentified and not released. Without a death certificate, their relatives will not receive any compensation. Only one facility in Bangladesh can analyze DNA samples; due to a lack of capacity, DNA samples could only be taken from about half of 324 anonymously buried.

Effects

In response to the accident, government reviews of the safety of the textile factories in Bangladesh were decided. At the beginning of May 2013, 18 textile factories were shut down by the state, and hundreds more are set to shut down in mid-May. In the future, textile workers will be allowed to form independent trade unions and negotiate wages; it was also decided to increase the minimum wage.

In mid-May 2013, large European and US-American customer companies also signed the enforceable agreement on fire and building protection in Bangladesh negotiated with the international trade union confederations UNI and IndustriALL as well as various non-governmental organizations (including the Campaign for Clean Clothes ) , which provides better occupational safety (with a focus on health protection , Building protection and fire protection, including systematic employee training) with regular independent controls. These are financed by all signatory companies through a steering committee in which they participate according to the production volumes. The agreement also includes the explicit right for workers to stop working in the event of serious safety deficiencies without being sanctioned. It must be implemented within 45 days of being signed.

The agreement was u. a. Welcomed by the United Services Union and the United States NGO Worker Rights Consortium .

Since the building was collapsed, protests by textile workers have become more violent and violent. On September 23, 2013, tens of thousands of workers took to the streets for the third day in a row, demanding that the minimum monthly wage be increased to 75 euros, setting fire to factories and fighting with the police. Gazipur and Dhaka police chiefs estimated the number of textile workers protesting at 200,000 and that 300 factories were closed to avoid attack by the demonstrators. Textile workers in Bangladesh are among the lowest paid in the world. Most of them receive the minimum wage, which in 2010 was raised to 3,000 taka per month (almost 30 euros) after months of protests. A government commission is now examining the required increase to 8,200 Taka (75 euros).

Even during the rescue work, international media reported on the then 21-year-old Nowshad Hasan Himu, who, as one of the volunteers, helped to rescue the survivors and dead for 17 days and then stayed in hospital for days to stand by the injured. After he subsequently suffered from severe depression, Himu doused himself with kerosene on April 24, 2019, the sixth anniversary of the building collapse , lit himself and died of this self-immolation .

German companies

In October 2014, the Alliance for Sustainable Textiles was started by around 30 companies and organizations with the aim of improving working and living conditions in the textile industry in low-wage countries.

Social responsibility along the supply chain

The building collapse in Savar Upazila has the role of the supply chain (supply chain) rather than just a single company as a design object of Corporate Social Responsibility found (CSR) to the fore. Since then, approaches to supply chain management have increasingly been considered to strengthen CSR. Based on the experiences from Sabhar, Wieland and Handfield (2013) propose three sets of measures to ensure CSR along the supply chain. An auditing of products and suppliers must take place, but this auditing must also include suppliers of suppliers. In addition, transparency must be increased along the entire supply chain, with smart technologies offering new potential. Finally, CSR can be improved through cooperation with local partners, with other companies in the industry and with universities.

See also

Web links

Commons : Building Collapse in Sabhar  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e 1127 dead, 2438 injured ( memento from June 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Tagesschau , May 13, 2013
  2. ↑ Factory collapse in Bangladesh: First victims receive compensation. In: sueddeutsche.de. March 28, 2014, accessed June 10, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b Survivors recovered in Bangladesh - allegedly only slightly injured. orf.at, May 10, 2013
  4. ↑ Matalan supplier among manufacturers in Bangladesh building collapse. guardian.co.uk, April 24, 2013
  5. ^ Frantic search for survivors after Dhaka building collapse. bbc.co.uk, April 25, 2013
  6. ^ A devastating result ( memento from June 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), tagesschau.de, May 23, 2013
  7. ↑ 200 textile workers still missing - criticism of the Bangladesh government , ORF.at of December 26, 2013
  8. ↑ 200 textile workers still missing - money only with a death certificate , ORF.at of December 26, 2013
  9. ↑ 18 textile factories closed in Bangladesh. fr-online.de, May 8, 2013
  10. ↑ Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (PDF; 72 kB) , IndustriALL, May 13, 2013
  11. ↑ a b Bangladesh: Fashion chains sign labor protection agreements ( Memento from June 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Tagesschau, May 15, 2013
  12. ↑ a b c Bangladesh: Fashion Manufacturers Commit to More Safety , Zeit Online, May 16, 2013
  13. ↑ We made it! - Global Breakthrough as Retail Brands sign up to Bangladesh Factory Safety Deal , IndustriALL, May 16, 2013
  14. ↑ Textile workers in Bangladesh protest for the third day in a row , ORF.at of 23 September 2013
  15. ↑ Bangladesh Rana Plaza rescue hero commits suicide , accessed April 26, 2019
  16. ^ Textile alliance becomes air number ( Memento from October 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Tagesschau, October 16, 2014
  17. ↑ Andreas Wieland and Robert B. Handfield (2013): The Socially Responsible Supply Chain: An Imperative for Global Corporations. Supply Chain Management Review, Vol. 17, No. 5, pp. 22-29.

Coordinates: 23 ° 50 ′ 46.3 "  N , 90 ° 15 ′ 27.2"  E