Bangladesh building collapse - owner arrested

The owner of the factory building that collapsed last Wednesday in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, killing hundreds of people, has been arrested by soldiers from the country’s Rapid Action Battalion at the border with India.

Five other people have also been detained - 3 owners of clothes factories that were housed in the Rana Plaza and 2 engineers.   Two more survivors have been pulled from the rubble today, but altogether about 360 people are known to have died.

Police said officials had ordered an evacuation of the block on Tuesday after cracks appeared, but that the factories ignored them, while municipal engineers are reported to have declared the building safe the day before it collapsed. 

Bangladesh has one of the biggest clothing industries in the world, providing cheap products for well-know Western retailers, but it has been widely criticised for low pay and dangerous conditions.     

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Indian building collapses

Nine people have been arrested in India in connection with the collapse of a high-rise block of flats in Mumbai last week.    74 people were killed.

The nine, who include builders, police officers and local officials, are alleged to have paid bribes to police and municipal officials so they could put up the building without official sanction.   They may face charges of culpable homicide and causing death by negligence.

Even though work is said to have started on the block just six weeks ago, seven floors had already been completed, and people had been moved into some apartments.    Most of the dead were poorly paid construction workers and their families.

India has suffered a number of deadly building collapses in recent years.   In November 2010, a 15 year old block of flats in New Delhi came down as an additional storey was being added.   At least 67 people, mostly poor migrants, died.

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