‘Worst’ building crash

Death toll in one of the worst ever building collapses in history increased to 525 following recovery of over 70 more bodies from beneath the debris of the Rana Plaza at Savar on Friday.

The figure was posted at 10pm on the board of the control room set up at the Adhar Chandra High School ground.

Led by the Army, personnel from Fire Services and Red Crescent were continuing the search for bodies while clearing the concrete slabs from the wreckage site.

According to a BBC report, the death toll in Savar was the highest ever in the recent history of building collapses after the fall of twin towers in a terror attack in New York on September 11, 2001.

Prior to that, 502 persons were killed in 1995 a departmental store caved in at Seoul in South Korea. Around one thousand people sustained injuries in the tragedy.

After retrieving the bodies at Savar they were taken to the school ground for identification by relatives. According to Sub-Inspector Farid Uddin, the in-charge of the control room, 431 bodies were handed over to the relatives until 8pm on Friday.

Many bodies had been shifted to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital and Sir Salimullah Medical College and Hospital morgues as they started badly decomposing. Thirty-two unclaimed bodies were already buried at Jurain graveyard on May 1.

On the tenth-day of the rescue operation, crane, dozers and rollers were seen clearing piles of slabs from the site which were then dumped at the banks of Bongshi River.

General Officer Commanding of the 9th Infantry Division Major General Chowdhury Hasan Suhrwardy, who is heading the operation, had on Thursday ruled out possibility of finding any victim alive under the debris after so many days of the collapse.

Dismissing the allegation that corpses were being concealed, the army officer appealed to all to join hands in the rescue operation.

He said bodies were pulled out with utmost care.