Rana Plaza. This disaster helped put Bangladesh on the map. When people found out we were moving to Bangladesh their first comments were “Is that in India?” followed shortly after by “ Wait, isn’t that where that Joe Fresh building collapsed?”
Rana Plaza, which is located just outside of Dhaka in Savar, killed over 1000 workers, many of which were women. Early morning on April 24, 2013, workers refused to enter the building because of the apparent cracks in the foundation. Unfortunately they were forced to enter and continue working. Many of the workers here are living on ridiculously small amounts of money each month and to refuse work would be to refuse their pay. Sometime in the morning the power went out (as we have learned so often happens here) but the generators went on. But because the generators were located on the roof, it caused the building to collapse.
So while living here we thought, we have to go see it. We hadn’t heard much of what it would be like, and so weren’t sure what to expect; some sort of memorial, a pile of rubble, and maybe some dust. We had heard that a larger memorial is located in or near the University in the area but we were not able to go visit that.
Once we arrived at the site we were taken back. There was a man in the corner taking a piss, the rains had flooded the site and left a stinky dirty pool of green water, and rubbish from the memorial was scattered behind the statues. It was emotional. To look at what has been described as the worst disaster related to the garment industry, and see disarray and neglect was disheartening.
love travels east 