The death toll from the ruins of the collapsed building of the Rana Plaza in Savar Friday night rose to 519 with scores of workers still unaccounted for.
Of the bodies, 495 have so far been retrieved from under the rubble; eight people died in different hospitals.
The authorities concerned have already handed over 407 bodies to their relatives, 65 bodies are still lying at a nearby school ground while some more are kept in morgues of different hospitals for identification.
From Thursday midnight to Friday afternoon, 68 bodies, most of them found near the crumbled stairs, were recovered from the fateful site, rescuers said.
President Abdul Hamid visited the site on the afternoon, ten days after the eight-storey building caved in.
Rescuers believe that the death toll might further rise, as the more they go deeper into the rubble, the more they find damaged and decomposed bodies.
The officials put the number of missing people at 149.
No survivors were found after the army rolled out heavy equipment four days into the collapse on April 24. Efforts to pull decomposed bodies out of rubble delayed the recovery operation, rescuers said.
Hundreds of relatives, holding photographs of their loved ones were still looking for their missing relatives possibly buried under the rubble of the collapsed building.
“It is a daunting task to recover decomposed bodies intact. But we are still trying our best to do that,” said General Officer Commanding of the 9th Infantry Division Major General Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy.
“Whenever the bodies were found, we halted our machine in the hope of recovering them intact. Most of the bodies were spotted at the stairs,” he said.
He said rescue operation would continue until we are convinced that there were no dead bodies under the rubble.
The rescuers estimate that the building turned into a 6000-tonne of debris, of which 500 tonnes have been removed.
The number of people rescued alive remained unchanged at 2437, according to the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR).
It is not yet clear as to how many workers were trapped on the fateful day. Locals say at least 3,200 people had come to work when the building came crashing down.
Thirty-two unclaimed bodies retrieved from the debris of the collapsed Rana Plaza were buried on Thursday at Jurain graveyard with many more graves ready for burial.
The frantic search for the missing people is going on in full swing as the rescuers are using heavy equipment to remove the concrete slabs from the ruins.
The army spokesperson Suhrawardy said the bodies, which were recovered in the morning, were sent to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) morgue.
Rescuers, including army, fire service and Red Crescent personnel, carried out the recovery operation using heavy machines, cranes, sensor cameras and trained dog squads.
The crumbling concrete slabs and pillars were being removed and dumped at the Bongshi River and behind the Enam Medical College and Hospital.
The eight-storey building, Rana Plaza, caved in on April 24 morning. Most of the victims were RMG workers employed in the five readymade garment factories housed in the building.
Meanwhile, hundreds of grief-stricken people continued to hunt for the bodies of their loved ones at the Adhar Chandra School ground, where bodies recovered from the wreckage are initially brought for identification.
The search for more bodies buried within the ruins continued to go on amid the strong stench of death that still pervades the site.
Those involved in the search are using face-masks and cans of air freshener to try to block out the smell.
Alim, father of two, have not been seen since the fateful day. His sister Mazeda has been looking for his brother over the last 10 days but in vain.
“I visited every hospital but failed to find him,” said Mazeda hanging around the school ground where lines of decomposed bodies were kept for identification.
