Bangladesh: Building Collapse Leaves 145 Dead

At least 145 people have died after an eight-storey building collapsed on the outskirts of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka.

Another 700 are reported to have been injured in the building's collapse, which involved several clothing factories.

"The toll will rise as conditions of some injured were critical," said Hiralal Roy, a senior emergency ward doctor at the nearby Enam hospital.

Tens of thousands of people gathered at the site, some of them weeping survivors, some searching for family members, with up to 1,000 people still reported to be trapped inside the building.

Primark, the budget clothing chain, occupied a floor of the building.

In a statement released on their website, a spokesman said: "The company is shocked and deeply saddened by this appalling incident at Savar, near Dhaka, and expresses its condolences to all of those involved.

Hundreds of factory workers were trapped inside the building

"Primark confirms that one of its suppliers occupied the second floor of the eight storey building, which housed several suppliers to the garment industry making clothing for a number of brands."

Clothing factories are usually staffed 24 hours a day.

Firefighters and soldiers using drilling machines and cranes worked together with local volunteers in the search for other survivors from the building, which fell into itself, leaving it about two storeys tall.

Thousands gathered on the streets where the building collapsed

Some workers complained that the building had developed cracks on Tuesday evening, triggering an evacuation, but they had been forced back to the production lines by their managers.

"The managers forced us to rejoin and just one hour after we entered the factory the building collapsed with a huge noise," said a 24-year-old worker who gave her first name as Mousumi.

"I am injured. But I've not found my husband who was working on the fourth floor," she said, estimating that 5,000 people worked inside the building, which also housed apartments, a bank and shops.

The collapse stirred memories of a fatal fire in a clothing factory in November that killed 112 people and raised an outcry about safety in the nation's garment industry.

That fire at the Tazreen factory drew international attention to the conditions workers toil under in the $20bn-a-year (£13bn) textile industry in Bangladesh.

The country has about 4,000 garment factories and exports clothes to leading Western retailers - the industry wields vast power in the South Asian nation.

Tazreen did not have emergency exits and its owner said only three floors of the eight-storey building were legally built.

Surviving employees said gates had been locked and managers had told them to go back to work after the fire alarm went off.

The factory made clothes for Wal-Mart, Disney and other Western brands.

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