Haunted rescuers of Rana Plaza

Some fates seem to have changed forever.

The ordinary people who turned rescuers after the Rana Plaza crumbled last year have not been able to bury the memories of hundreds perishing under the building’s weight.

More than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers, lost their lives, but rescuers managed to retrieve more than 2,000 alive.

Rafiqul Islam, a mason, fell ill after performing rescues voluntarily for 21 days. He was later admitted to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

His wife gave birth to their son ‘Ramzan’ four months after the catastrophe, but Islam has no memory of it, just as he cannot recall many events after the disaster, including the days of his treatment in Dhaka.

His other three children stopped going to school after he fell ill.

Islam keeps returning to the site and brings with him saline water, for those ‘who are trapped’.

“They call me everyday… I make saline in a bucket and feed them with bottles … I tell them I’ll come back for them but when I do I see that all those I’ve fed have died,” he said sitting where Rana Plaza once stood.

His family, based in Savar, struggles to buy the medicine he was prescribed and but still can’t afford to take him to his doctors in Dhaka.

Islam crawled through the tunnels carved through the collapsed structure and pulled out many victims alive, locals said.

He also handled dead and mangled bodies during the second stage of the rescue operation when the army decided to start using heavy machinery to clear the debris.

Islam was among the numerous locals who made heroic efforts to rescue the victims.

Government Titumir College student ‘Nirob’ refused to say anything about his experience taking care of the dead bodies that used to be lined up at Savar's Adhar Chandra High School ground.

He only said his HSC examinations were underway when the building fell.

Mizanur Rahman Khan, a bank employee and a Savar resident, said he battled the morbid feelings of death there for months.

Sitting in a restaurant near Rana Plaza, he said, “I couldn’t eat at these shops for nearly two months. I felt the food also had blood and flesh.”

The several hundreds of fire fighters who also struggled to save lives at Rana Plaza didn’t exhibit these symptoms, claimed Fire Service and Civil Defence Director General Brig Gen Ali Ahmed Khan.

Md Din Islam Rajib

Another rescuer, Md Din Islam Rajib, said he went home when he began to lose sleep after four days of working in the debris.

“All I remember is that I woke up at around 11pm and didn’t eat. I opened the door and let myself out. That night, I went to Sadarghat alone. I roamed for days like a mad man.”

“People took pity on me and had me sent to my village in Shariatpur, because, besides the name of my union chairman, the address is the only thing I remembered.”

Rajib said his mother told him he was shackled at home for more than ten days after which she and his uncle brought him to NIMH.

After months of treatment, Rajib is back to driving the mobile library by Bishwo Shahitto Kendro.

There is still no accurate count, but sources say there were no less than a thousand who volunteered.

“Providing psychological support to disaster victims is still new in Bangladesh,” said NIMH Director Prof Md Wajiul Alam Chowdhury.

He said most victims or volunteers usually ‘help themselves’.

“We began providing support after the Rana Plaza incident.”

But 78 voluntary rescuers were provided help under an initiative launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and NIMH, said Prof Alam.

The gruesome exposure led to the development of a long list of disorders in them, he said.

Of them, 23 were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, seven from acute stress disorder, five had bipolar mood disorder, and four had conversion disorder, an issue similar to hypertension.

Two showed symptoms of general anxiety disorder, one person was suffering from panic attacks and another one had manic disorder. The experience also led one person towards drug abuse.

The rest showed symptoms of multiple disorders.

Six among the many who came to get help were also treated at NIMH, said Prof Alam.

“Just two among them are seeking regular counsel.”

People do not usually return to get treatment after receiving some primary care because of the lack of awareness around mental health, he said.

But there are also those who never got much support, like Afroza Akhtar, a garment worker and the only woman who went into the deadly tunnels to save lives.

Akhtar, who initially came to search for a relative, continued to work without sleep for nine straight days. Her tenacity had surprised the army men who supervised the immense rescue effort.

The men asked her to rest in vain and had her sent home in their car after she drained all her energy.

Afroza Akhtar

“I went home but couldn’t sleep. I kept hearing them in my head. I would walk alone at nights. People asked me what I was doing there so late, and I asked them to leave me alone.”

Akhtar’s landlord was a physician who came forward to provide her some primary treatment.

She said she was well but got piercing headaches from time to time.

“It is very important that doctors reach out to patients like that,” said Prof Alam. “But we don’t see that a lot in Bangladesh.”

(Written in English by Samin Sababa)