Almost two weeks after the last survivor was found, army rescuers broke through a mass of concrete and steel and carried out Reshma Begum, a seamstress in her 20s who relatives said had moved to the city four years ago with her young son to earn her own way in life.
As the nation watched on live television, rescuers cut through fallen masonry to reach Reshma. As she was lifted from the rubble, crowds that had gathered broke into cheers of “Allah is great!” Rescue workers wiped away tears.
She told her rescuers that she had fallen from the third floor when the building collapsed and landed in a Muslim prayer room in the basement along with three other workers - who soon died of injuries from the fall.
Although the ceiling had caved in there was enough room for her to stand and move about in the pitch-black darkness, and she forced a broken pipe up through a crack for ventilation.
She said she scavenged food and bottled water from the backpacks of her dead colleagues, but it had run out two days ago. Many times she heard voices, she told her rescuers, but her attempts to attract attention had failed.
Yesterday, she started banging the pipe against the concrete again after bulldozers had removed loose rubble that had been covering the area.
“I heard the sound and rushed towards the spot,“ Abdur Razzaq, an army sergeant who was involved in the rescue, said in an interview. “I knelt down and heard a faint voice. ‘Sir, please help me,’ she cried.”
The extraordinary rescue of Reshma Begum has lifted the spirits of the nation after turmoil in recent weeks. Many watched the rescue live on television and social media was abuzz with comments on the survival of Reshma Begum. Shortly after the rescue, Bangladesh was trending worldwide on Twitter.
Reshma Begum told rescuers, who spoke to her during the rescue operation, that she was unhurt. She had been buried for 16 days and about seven hours in a space around 30 feet long and 15 feet wide, according to rescue workers, during one of the hottest times of the year, with temperatures reaching 35 degrees Celsius and 80% humidity.
Her hair and face were covered in dirt as she carried out on a stretcher, wearing a purple and pink salwar-kameez, and her scalp was showing where she had apparently lost big clumps of hair.
Doctors who attended her at the nearby military hospital said she was suffering from dehydration but otherwise appeared to have no major injuries.
Without food, most people could survive for eight weeks or so, doctors say; however, without water a person can only live for three to five days.
Two other factors likely helped her survive: Since she couldn’t move around much, she conserved a great deal of energy. And though the temperature must have been fierce during the day, it would have been cooler at night, which would also have allowed her to lose less water through sweat.
As for her apparent hair loss, experts said it could have been stress-related.
“The state of being starved is a hugely stressful condition, and people respond in different ways,” said Rick Miller, spokesman for the British Dietetic Association and an expert on earthquake survivors. “That could have induced the temporary hair loss.”
At the hospital, a woman who identified herself as Ayesha Begum, Reshma’s sister, said she and another woman who identified herself as Reshma’s aunt had been waiting outside the building for two weeks.
“We’d given up hope,” Ayesha Begum said. “God has brought her back for the sake of her little son.”
Reshma Begum came from the northern district of Dinajpur, according to Ayesha Begum. She said her sister had come to Dhaka four years ago to work in a garment factory so as to become more independent. She was working as a seamstress in the New Wave Bottoms factory in Rana Plaza.
The crowds around the disaster site had thinned in recent days, but on Friday evening, families clutching photos of missing loved ones were once again thronging the area hoping to see their relatives brought out alive.
“God is merciful,” said Afsar Ali, who said he was looking for his daughter. “We still have hope.”
There has been controversy over the pace of the rescue operations. Right after the disaster, the government turned down an offer of help from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a spokesman for the office said.
In the first few days, volunteers were heavily involved, some using their bare hands. People held up handwritten signs asking for donations of oxygen cylinders, drills and water bottles.
Some relatives of those missing, angered by the lack of specialised equipment, clashed with police at the site.
Later, the army, which now is coordinating efforts, moved in with bulldozers and other heavy machinery. They have defended the pace of the rescue efforts, saying they were careful not to go too quickly and kill possible survivors.
Maj Gen Hasan Suhrawardy, who is leading the army’s salvage operation, said the pace would now slow again, since Ms. Begum’s survival had raised hopes, however slight, that other survivors could be in the wreckage.
Bulldozers stopped plowing the debris for a few hours after Begum was discovered, before starting operations again gingerly under flashlights.
Briefing reporters at the building collapse site, Gen. Suhrawardy said: “Reshma is totally OK. She worked hard to keep herself alive. That is a very strong woman.”
The eight-storey Rana Plaza complex, which housed five garment factories outside the capital Dhaka, collapsed April 24, killing more than 1,000 people in one of the worst-ever industrial accidents.
The last known survivor before Friday, a woman who identified herself as Shahina, was killed on April 28 by a fire set off inadvertently by rescuers who were trying to cut through to free her.
The tragedy has shocked Bangladesh and the world, putting pressure on the government and foreign brands to improve safety conditions in the country’s 5,000 factories.
The government this week has begun an inspection of the country’s factories. On Wednesday, the government forced 18 factories to shut while they carried out safety improvements, including three owned by the country’s largest exporter of garments – Nassa Group.
There have been few instances of people surviving longer than 10 days after disasters like earthquakes, according to studies. In 2010, after the Haiti earthquake, a teenage girl was rescued 15 days after the disaster.
The United Nations, which coordinates disaster relief, normally calls of search and rescue operations after a week or so and shifts its focus to tending to survivors.
In the past 10 days, focus has shifted to recovering hundreds of bodies that lay under rubble. The death toll has jumped by about 100 each day since Saturday, as salvage workers found huge numbers of bodies on the ground floor and basement.
