‘A nightmare I couldn’t wake up from’: half of Rana Plaza survivors unable to work 10 years after disaster

theguardian.com:

T he cracks on the walls started to appear two days earlier. But despite the warning signs, Moushumi Begum still came to work on 24 April 2013. Moments later, she was buried under heavy rubble. “It all happened so quickly. I vividly remember every detail about that day, even though it was 10 years ago,” says Begum, who spent three hours trapped under Rana Plaza, the eight-storey building on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, that came crashing down.

That morning, garment workers and some factory managers had argued in the dusty courtyard outside the building, many reluctant to enter as they feared it was unsafe. Workers had been evacuated the day before because of those fears. Some say they were told they would not be paid that month’s wages if they did not go to work; others say that an internal gate was closed behind them.

In the 90 seconds it took to collapse, Rana Plaza became a symbol of global inequality. The final death toll was 1,134 people, with 2,500 injured. There were harrowing stories of survival, of people having their limbs amputated without anaesthetic to prise them from the rubble.

A new report by ActionAid Bangladesh has shed light on the devastating toll the disaster has taken on survivors a decade on, revealing that more than half (54.5%) of the survivors are still unemployed. The key reason is health conditions such as breathing difficulties, vision impairment and physical challenges, including not being able to stand or walk properly.

The report also assessed the safety of 200 current garment workers, with more than half feeling that initiatives taken by factory management were inadequate. Almost 20% of those interviewed reported that their factories lacked firefighting equipment, while 23% said