108 killed in building collapse in 4 years
Staff Correspondent
With two ill-fated workers who died in yesterday's building collapse, the death toll in similar incidents rose to at least 108 while more than 200 were injured in last four years. No government body is yet to take any effective steps to ensure workers' safety and prevent the tragic incidents while none of the building owners concerned or building code violators has been punished. The moneyed building owners have escaped punishment just paying some tiny compensation to the victims' families. In 2004, 2005 and 2006, only the old buildings collapsed or subsidized in the city but this year two under-construction buildings collapsed allegedly due to lack of monitoring and non-compliance with the building regulations. Following the collapse of an under-construction Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) sweeper colony building at Dayaganj on May 25, the visitors' shade of an under-construction hospital collapsed, killing two workers at Kamarpara near Ashulia yesterday. Weak monitoring of Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk), using low quality construction materials, violation of building code and filling up the wetland are the main causes behind the building collapse, experts said. The April 11 2005 collapse of Spectrum, a 9-storey garment factory building in Savar killed 66 garment workers, injured 173 others and it took nine days to clear the rubble and recover the dead bodies. But no one got any exemplary punishment, although the probe report identified faulty constructions and lack of maintenance as the reasons of the building collapse. The phoenix building that housed a proposed kidney hospital at Tejgaon, collapsed on February 25, 2006 killing 21 workers and injuring over 50 others. It was revealed that the owner did not have any approval for the hospital or reconstruction of the building. A century-old building at Shankharibazar collapsed on June 9, 2004, killing 19 people of a couple of families. That time the DCC authorities announced that they would evacuate and knock down all other old buildings around. But it is yet to be done and hundreds of people are still living in the area, risking their life. The construction sector itself remains a silent unsafe working place for the workers. Eighty construction workers died and at least 173 others were injured in workplace accidents throughout the country in 2005, reveals a survey conducted by Bangladesh Occupational Safety, Hearth and Environment Foundation, a rights organisation for the workers.
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