A top Bangladesh court on Tuesday ordered the government to “immediately” confiscate the property of a collapsed building’s owner as thousands of protesters demanding the man’s death clashed with police, leaving at least 100 injured.
A two-judge panel of the High Court also asked the central bank to freeze the assets of the owners of the five garment factories in the building, and use the money to pay the salaries and other benefits of their workers.
The order came after police produced the building owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, and the factory owners in court. The order did not elaborate but it was implied that the salaries of the dead victims would be paid to their relatives.
At least 386 people were killed and 2,500 people escaped with injuries when the illegally constructed 8-story Rana Plaza collapsed on April 24. According to one estimate, about 1,000 people are missing, indicating that the death toll could end up at about 1,400.
The collapse has become the deadliest disaster to hit Bangladesh’s garment industry, which is worth $20 billion annually and supplies global retailers.
Rescue efforts have now been suspended and authorities are using heavy machinery to clear the broken and crushed concrete slabs to get to the bottom floor, where emergency workers expect to find many more dead bodies.
On Tuesday, clashes broke out again between thousands of garment workers and police in Savar, the United News of Bangladesh news agency reported.
It said police attacked with sticks when the workers, who were demanding death penalty for Rana and news of the missing people, tried to break the security cordon around the collapsed building. At least 22 of the injured were hospitalized.
The protesters also smashed at least 20 vehicles in the area, the agency said.
Earlier, people had waited patiently at the site for news of missing relatives, holding their pictures and identity cards as they watched cranes lifting sections of ceilings and floors from the rubble. Emergency workers in hard hats used drilling and cutting machines to break up the slabs into manageable pieces.
Most of the bodies have been handed to families except 49 that have been kept at the morgue of state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital for identification. Mahmud Ali of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society said many more bodies are believed trapped under the rubble of the building, judging by stench of decomposing flesh still emanating.
Zillur Rahman Chowdhury, a Dhaka district administrator, put the number of missing at 100, based on the information received from the families of the missing.
But volunteers from the Social Welfare Club based at the Jahangirnagar University say the official tally is incomplete, and at least one volunteer at the club said that based on information gathered from families at the site at least 1,000 people may be missing.
Bangladesh’s garment industry was the third-largest in the world in 2011, after China and Italy, having grown rapidly in the past decade.
Among the garment makers in the building were Phantom Apparels, Phantom Tac, Ether Tex, New Wave Style and New Wave Bottoms. Altogether, they produced several million shirts, pants and other garments a year. The New Wave companies, according to their website, make clothing for several major North American and European retailers.
Britain’s Primark has acknowledged it was using a factory in Rana Plaza. It said in a statement Monday that it is providing emergency aid and will pay compensation to victims who worked for its supplier.
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