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The police and related authorities told the media that the ground of the construction site was too soft and could not support the weight of the temporary bamboo pillars underneath the roof, thus causing the accident. A complaint has been registered with the local police regarding the "unnatural death" of three people.
The collapse of buildings is unfortunately not a new phenomenon to the people of Bangladesh. An old dormitory building at the University of Dhaka collapsed upon sleeping students in the early morning of Oct. 15, 1985, killing 39 students and injuring about 300 others. Officials of the country's largest university, however, did not take any preventive measures to avoid this disaster, although they were aware of the problem. Students who had come to the university to gain knowledge lost their lives instead, to the lasting shock of their families. A monument was erected at the site of the old dormitory, where teachers and students annually pay tribute to the deceased students.
Another fatal accident was the Spectrum tragedy in which a nine-story factory building of Spectrum Sweater and the adjoining Shayryar Fabric factory in the industrial town of Savar near Dhaka collapsed on April 11, 2005. At least 64 workers were killed and 74 were permanently disabled out of a work force of approximately 400 workers.
Again, the poor workers -- who despite working for 12 hours to 16 hours daily earned only US$20 to US$35 per month for the survival of their families -- were the victims of this tragic disaster. The families of the deceased workers and the injured victims received only token monetary relief after a few months, following tremendous pressure from the media as well as national and international rights organizations. In addition, hundreds lost their jobs.
It was learned from the surviving workers that they saw cracks in the walls of the building and reported them to the management of the export-oriented factory five days before the accident, but their warnings went unheeded. Instead, they were told not to talk too much.
The Spectrum factory is owned by a man whose wife is a High Court judge who was recruited in a controversial process that was widely criticized in the media as well as by legal professionals. The factory was allegedly exploiting the workers, a practice on which the whole garment industry of Bangladesh is based: the workers sweat to make sweaters to sweeten the lifestyle of the owners.
The victims were so "privileged," however, that lawmakers, ministers and important government officials attended the funerals and issued condolence messages. However, no public interest litigation was lodged in this case.
The Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha, the capital city development authority, and the Dhaka City Corp. are responsible for monitoring the construction process, from soil tests to building materials, architectural designs, heights, etc. Outside of Dhaka there are separate similar institutions, such as the Dept. of Public Housing, the Dept. of Roads and Highways and the Local Government Engineering Dept., with a large work force to do the same job as municipal corporations in their respective jurisdictions throughout the country.
These authorities are responsible for ensuring the quality of the construction of buildings, roads, schools, hospitals and public offices. Each construction proposal, whether public or private, requires the official approval of these offices. For decades, these authorities have only learned how to harass people to extract money in the name of approving their proposed construction projects rather than serving the country's citizens.
For instance, a 2-kilometer road was being paved by a contractor authorized to do the job by the roads and highways authorities in one of the southwestern cities. The quantity of the bitumen that was poured was so thin that before coming to the end of the project the stones at the beginning section were worn away and the road was as full of potholes as it was prior to the paving work. No one was held accountable, however, for the waste of public money.
In another common example, a plan will be approved for the construction of a four-story building by officials; but when the building has been completed, it will be six stories or higher. Civil servants will not come to the construction site to monitor the project or to halt construction if the authorities are adequately bribed.
The collapse of buildings symbolizes the sorry state of the rule of law in Bangladesh. The practice of bribing officials by individuals or companies that are allegedly responsible for the country's man-made disasters is stronger than any law in effect in a country where the leaders both rule and exploit the people. In this process, the rule of law no longer exists.
The authorities and government policymakers remain blind, deaf and paralyzed. They can only see, forever and ever, that complaints of unnatural deaths are recorded, or they perfunctorily perform their duties, making monuments to mourn the deaths once a year, or they pretend to be shocked when attending the funerals of the poor. The victims and common people of Bangladesh want to know how long this culture will go on and on.
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(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender living in Sylhet in Bangladesh who has been working on human rights issues in the country for more than a decade. He was a journalist in Bangladesh in the 1990s.)
