What a wrenching weekend. First the fire in a garment factory in Chittagong that burned over 54 people to death. The next day a 6-story building collapses in Dhaka near the Nabisco factory in Tejgaon Industrial area, killing many and trapping many more.
All day stories about the collapsed building circulated. There were many people caught under the rubble alive, some were calling for help on the mobile. But we don't have the heavy equipment needed to lift the piles of rubble to rescue these people. Another story claimed that a lot more people died (official dead count was 16) and "they" were not admitting it.
There is something particularly heartrending about a situation where you know someone is trapped alive and yet they cannot be rescued and must slowly die. Like the Russian submarine that blew up some years ago, or the Mexican mine accident last week. And now this...
Why is it that we have money to make thousands of buildings yet don't have the money for the heavy-lifting equipment that could have saved these victims - the people who do the actual building?
sistunes
Sunday, February 26, 2006