Exactly a year ago on April 24, residents of Savar, a crowded industrial suburb 20km away from Dhaka, began their usual working day in the morning.
It was a little different from any other summer morning because of several thousand anxious readymade garment workers. That morning, they were hesitant about beginning their day’s work in the apparel factories housed in the Rana Plaza.
In just a year, tens of millions of people around the world got familiar with the name Rana Plaza because of its horrific collapse on April 24, 2013.
The collapse that claimed more than 1,100 lives, is easily the deadliest ever industrial disaster in the history of human civilisation. It pushed the 1911 New York factory fire that killed 146 workers, to the second place.
The day of the catastrophic collapse of Rana Plaza that housed five garment factories who made clothes for European and American consumers, thousands of workers were unwilling to get into the factory because they knew that a crack had developed in the building on the previous day.
The anxiety remained unnoticed by not only the thousands of other residents in the area, but also was completely ignored by the authorities of the building and the factories.
Over the past year, thousands of accounts of witnesses and survivors have been published and broadcast in national and international print and broadcast media including the Dhaka Tribune.
Those interviews revealed many terrible stories before and after collapse.
Around 8am, the building authority, factory managers and supervisors persuaded and forced the panicked workers to get into the building.
The scared and helpless workers could not resist the powerful managers and supervisors; they had to get in. The building was so vulnerable that some workers said they could feel it trembling as early as 8:30am.
Soon after, according to witnesses and survivors, huge bangs could be heard and the building suddenly started jolting heavily.
Many workers thought it was an earthquake; but till then, none of them could fathom the level of devastation and the loss that the catastrophic collapse could result in. Even the authorities concerned took months to get an idea of some sorts about the damages to lives and properties caused by the collapse.
WAKE UP CALL WAS IGNORED
The tragedy could have been averted if the frantic warnings of a local engineer and journalists had not been ignored.
The problem surfaced on April 23, the day before the collapse. Busy garment workers on the second floor were shocked by a loud bang that sounded like an explosion. Curious workers found that cracks had appeared on the building.
Information spread like wildfire among the workers in the upper floors, the owners of the shops and the employees of the Brac Bank branch inside the building. Horrified, they all rushed outside.
A local engineer and some journalists warned about the possible risks of using the unsafe building. Some of them even suggested the owner of the building close it immediately.
Only a handful of private television channels broadcast the news of the cracks that had developed in the building on the day before the collapse. Those news items annoyed Sohel Rana, the owner and a politically and financially powerful gangster.
Only Brac Bank took the wise decision to move its employees out the branch on April 23.
Sohel Rana convinced the other tenants that the building was safe. Ignoring the warnings, the factory owners listened to Rana and decided to operate their units April 24.
INTENSITY OF THE CATASTROPHE
It was hard for everyone in the newsroom to readily fathom the intensity of the disaster when news started pouring in on the morning of April 24.
Even the local people had very little idea although they were the first to rush to the site of the collapse and begin rescuing the trapped workers from under the rubbles of a building that was not only constructed with substandard materials but also built illegally on encroached land.
The amateur rescuers did not have any equipment support. When they began the rescue work, the floors of the building were piling up on one another like pancakes.
They had to scrawl on bare hands and unprotected knees through the little places between the floors, pillars and beams. They had to give up the idea of using any sort of equipment out of fear that further collapses might be triggered.
The volunteers did not care about their lives. Later fire-fighters arrived at the scene and some soldiers from the army joined in operation.
Heavy equipment, brought from various government and private organisations, was used only in the last phase of the operation.
Similarly, news coverage began with usual assignments of a few reporter and photographers. However, very soon, the media house began to realise that the scale of the disaster was beyond any speculation. The authorities of the factories, the garment owners’ association, and local residents – none could say for certain how many workers were trapped under the debris.
Death toll kept on climbing by the hundreds – 100, 150, 200, 250, 300...
Rumour spread that around 500 people were killed. But when the 17-day round-the-clock rescue operation eventually ended, the toll crossed the 1,100 mark.
Despite all the tragic developments every other minute, every time someone was pulled out of the rubble alive, the rescuers got a reason to put in more effort and energy into their work.
But how many workers were there? How many were alive? How long the rescue operation should be continued? Everyone was asking these questions. Television channels broadcast the rescue operation live round the clock. News of the tragedy occupied most of the spaces in the newspapers.
Almost all reporters and photographers, even journalists from the news desk had to be assigned to cover the entire of the operation.
The Rana Plaza collapse remained the talk of the town for several weeks. All major foreign broadcast and print media rushed to Savar and gave extensive coverage to the disaster.
During the weeks-long rescue operation, thousands of people remained around the site day and night. Many of them were there to look for their missing family members; many were there to help the rescuers; many helped people in their searches; many others were there just to witness of the rescue operation of the most tragic incident ever.
The clinics and the playgrounds of the local schools were the places where the rescued dead bodies and the survivors were kept. Everyday thousands of people gathered around all these places. Many of them offered individual financial supports to the families of the victims – nobody cared how big or small the contributions were. Any size would have mattered.
The death of female garment worker Shaheena for whom rescuers put in hours of frantic efforts, shocked everyone. A fire that was accidentally ignited inside a rescue tunnel killed her.
A brave engineer, who volunteered the rescue operation, also died after being burnt severely in the same fire.
However, pulling Reshma out alive on the 17th day, just before wrapping up the operation, gave a reason for all the exhausted rescuers to smile. Everyone was left pleasantly wondering how Reshma could survive for 17 days under the rubbles.
But there was plenty more stories of survival that are equally incredible – how hundreds of workers survived weeks in the darkness under rubbles without water and food.
One female survivor told this reporter that she had to drink urine and blood of a fellow dead worker for surviving.
Many lost their limbs and had damaged organs. Many kids lost their parents in the tragedy. There are still many more who have never come back to normal life. Hundreds have remained jobless and scores of bodies are still unidentified.
Many victims and the families of the dead ones have not got any compensation.
For decades to come, many more stories will continue to be unfolded surrounding the gruesome disaster.
The consequences of the tragedy will be felt at the social, national and personal levels for many more years ahead.