A survivor was reportedly rescued from the rubble of an eight-storey factory building that collapsed in Bangladesh 16 days ago, killing more than 1,000.
By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News
A survivor was pulled alive from the ruins of an eight-story factory in Bangladesh on Friday, 16 days after it collapsed killing more than 1,000 people.
The woman, identified as Reshmi or Reshma, was found trapped in the basement of the building and given water and food as rescuers tried to reach her. Rescuers stopped using heavy machinery on the site during the delicate operation, according to Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper.
Local television then showed a woman in a purple dress being freed from the rubble.
"She had been rescued and taken to a military hospital," Bangladesh's army spokesman Shahinul Islam told Reuters.
The Star said the first sign there was a survivor came when a rescuer heard groans coming from the basement at 3:15 p.m. local time (5:15 a.m. ET).
Bangladesh’s Independent newspaper quoted a rescuer who told local television that "as we were clearing rubble, we called out if anyone was alive."
"Then we heard her saying, 'please save me, please save me.' Since then she has been talking to us."
An official told the paper that she may have drunk water pumped into the building. It had been thought a fire that broke out after the collapse was likely to have killed anyone else inside.
"She has been located in a gap between a beam and a column. Her name is Reshmi. She may have reserves of water or have drunk some of the water that we've pumped into the building," fire service chief Ahmed Ali told the Independent as the rescuers sought to free the woman.
The April 24 collapse of the Rana Plaza complex, which is around 20 miles northwest of Dhaka, was the world's worst industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984, Reuters reported.
A spokesman at the army control room controlling the operation to remove the rubble told the news service on Friday that the number of people confirmed to have been killed had reached 1,038. Roughly 2,500 people were rescued.
The disaster, believed to have been triggered when generators were started up during a blackout, has put the spotlight on Western retailers who use the impoverished South Asian nation as a source of cheap goods.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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- Pope condemns 'slave labor' conditions in collapsed Bangladesh factory
