10 years after Rana Plaza, is Bangladesh's garment industry any safer?

Trade union leader Babul Akhter was working at Bangladesh's labor ministry in Dhaka on the morning that Rana Plaza, a nine-story building crammed with garment factories, collapsed. He rushed to the scene in Savar district, around 20 miles outside the capital. There he heard the cries of trapped workers emanating from the rubble — a muffled cacophony he recalls sounding like the buzz of honeybees.

"We realized how helpless they were ... and we were also helpless (in) that we couldn't do anything for them," said Akhter, who is secretary general of the Bangladesh Garments & Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF). He spoke via a translator in a group interview with CNN and other media outlets.

Monday marks 10 years since history's deadliest garment factory disaster. More than 1,100 people, mostly women, were killed. Over 2,500 others were injured. While businesses in the building's lower floors had immediately closed when structural cracks were discovered a day earlier, thousands of factory workers were forced — either?directly by their superiors, or indirectly by the pressure to earn a day's wage — to return on the day of the collapse, despite many of them raising concerns.

"The workers did not have any say because they were working for minimum wage ... and they were not even unionized," Akhter said. "So, they couldn't collectively raise the issue (of not returning to work)."

The collapse was triggered by vibrations from diesel generators switched on following a power outage. But subsequent investigations revealed a long catalog of failures, oversights and — according to organizations like the global nonprofit?Transparency International?— corruption at practically every stage of the seven-year-old building's life.

Rana Plaza collapsed because substandard materials were used to build on the site of a filled-in pond, and because extra floors were added to expand the structure beyond its authorized design. It collapsed because authorities had permitted the building, originally planned for commercial purposes, to be converted to industrial use and additionally occupied by five garment factories. It collapsed because earlier audits were inadequate; warnings were ignored or dismissed.

In 2016, 38 people were charged with murder over the tragedy, including factory owners and government officials, though some of these individuals have since died or had their charges dropped. Rana Plaza's owner, Sohel Rana, remains in custody as part of a lengthy ongoing trial. He has, in the meantime, been convicted on separate corruption charges.

But the search for accountability went far beyond individuals — and stretched beyond Bangladesh's borders. Factories in Rana Plaza produced garments for the likes of Italian retailer Bennetton and British fast fashion brand Primark. As such, the disaster held a mirror up to the developed world, namely?consumers hungry for cheap clothing?and Western brands using low-cost production to meet demand.

In the collapse's aftermath, numerous labels sourcing from Bangladesh vocally committed to improving worker safety in the country. So, a decade on, are the clothing factories that now account for?84% of the country's exports?any safer?

Source- edition.cnn.com