
Photo by Rijans007
On April 21 2013, the Rana Plaza building, an eight story factory building in Greater Dhaka collapsed, killing over a thousand workers. The factory collapsed because, quite simply, the building was not designed to be a factory. The building had been built to house offices and shops. When the building’s owner later converted the building, he added industrial sewing machines and the generators to power them, but not the additional supports necessary to ensure that the building could withstand the resulting vibrations. The day before the collapse, cracks appeared in the walls of the building and workers were sent home. But the next morning, supervisors declared the building safe and ordered workers back to work. Those who were reluctant to enter the building were threatened with a dock in pay. Continue reading