Sumaya, a worker of Tazreen Fashions, received a blunt head trauma on the night the factory burnt down. Afterwards for several days, she was bleeding through the nose.
On July 4, eight months after the incident, doctors at Dhaka Medical College Hospital diagnosed her with exophthalmos, a swelling of the eye which is common among patients suffering from blunt head traumas. On July 14, she had a surgery. Further diagnosis suggested that she had developed a tumour which was cancerous.
Three months after the collapse of Rana Plaza in Savar on April 24, in which over 1,100 workers died and 2,500 others were injured, many survivors and even the rescue workers are facing post-traumatic problems.
Rubina Begum, who worked at one of the factories in Rana Plaza for two years, is suffering from a serious pelvic fracture. She has been unable to work and has been told by doctors that she may never engage in strenuous activities, such as intercourse. Speaking to our correspondent, Rubina expressed her fear that she would be "neither valued as a worker nor as a wife."
During the Rana Plaza rescue operations, many locals and activists volunteered to rescue the workers who were under the rubble. Rafiq, one such volunteer, rescued at least 20 workers alive and recovered many dead bodies. Rafiq has been traumatised since the incident, his family members said. Rafiq has not slept peacefully in the last three months, they said. In his dreams he always sees rubble, dead bodies and hears people calling to him to be rescued.
Doctors have told rescue worker Yusuf Ali he will never be able to walk normally again because of an injury to his spinal cord that he got in the Rana Plaza rescue operation. "I have rescued many people who are now living a good life? What will happen to me?" he said.
"When any disaster happens we take only short term actions. But no one even thinks about what will happen in the long term. The survivors are living an almost dead life. But nobody comes forward to help them," said Kolpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Workers Solidarity.
Saydia Gulrukh, an anthropologist and activist working for Tazreen victims, said: "When one incident happens authorities create a fund. This is a very short term initiative. After sometime they close the fund, and the victims of the incident who are long term sufferers do not get any help from them. What should they do then?"