“Who did you lose, apu (sister)?” a ten-year-old girl asked me with teary eyes and soulful sympathy in her voice.
So appalling was the catastrophe that it was haunting each and every one in Savar where I went to cover the news of the disaster yesterday.
People who lost their near and dear ones thought that every person gathered there must have lost someone under the rubble of the caved-in building.
I suddenly began to feel guilty of not losing anyone in the Rana Plaza building collapse.
Morsheda, sister of the ten-year-old girl, was darting frantically here and there, looking for her missing husband in front of the collapsed building, now a pile of mangled debris.
She was asking every single person she came across, be it a law enforcer or be it a firefighter, about her husband Gafur who worked in the finishing section in one of the garment units housed in Rana Plaza.
Mosheda herself is also a garment worker presently working in the Surma Garment. Morsheda got married to Gafur two years back.
Completely drained and exhausted, 19-year-old Lovely was sitting on a concrete block gazing into space.
She came to look for her brother Bitu who had joined a clothing factory in the collapsed building as a controller four months ago.
He was offered a better salary, so he left work in Vision Garment and joined the garment on the 3rd floor of Rana Plaza, Lovely said.
He used to draw Tk10, 000 in Vision Garments but here he joined for a better salary of Tk12, 000, lovely added.
The sole earner of a five-member family, however, was not found till the report was filed.
M Jamal Uddin was yelling at the rescuers: “Please check the 7th floor’s toilet. My sister Swapna was there. Please don’t forget to check that floor’s bathroom.”
23-year-old Swapna used to work on the 5th floor.
Jamal, Swapna’s brother, said one of Swapna’s friends, who was rescued yesterday, told him that she poked fun at Swapna before she entered the washroom.
That’s all I know about her, her last words with her friend, Jamal said in a muffled voice.
“And then the building came crashing down; Swapna was trapped in the bathroom; please bring her body to me; I want nothing else,” Jamal was screaming hysterically.
One could see people running, carrying dead bodies to each and every ambulance that entered the Adhar Chandra High School ground.
Most people were waiting on the school field rather than looking for their relatives in front of Rana Plaza.
It has been more than 24 hours. She was on the 7th floor. Rezia was alive when the building collapsed and now she is dead, Aminur, brother of Rezia, was moaning and groaning.
The school ground was being used to keep the recovered dead bodies from Rana Plaza.
So far 175 bodies have been brought to the school ground. Of them, 150 were brought from Rana Plaza and 25 from the Enam Medical College and Hospital, Parbatinagar, Savar.
Most of the relatives, who were looking for their missing near and dear ones, could only mention their names and which floor they used to work on.
Sometimes they could say their father’s names but they could not specify the factory they worked for.
