Rescuers give up hope of finding survivors in factory rubble

Rescue workers in Bangladesh have given up hope of finding any more survivors in the rubble of a building that collapsed five days ago and began using heavy machinery to remove the rubble and look for bodies, an official said.

By The Newsroom

Published 30th Apr 2013, 02:00 BST

At least 380 people were killed when the illegally constructed, eight-storey Rana Plaza collapsed in a heap on Wednesday morning along with thousands of workers in the five garment factories in the building.

About 2,500 survivors have been accounted for.

The building owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, was arrested on Sunday in the western border town of Benapole while he was trying to flee to India.

The collapse was the deadliest disaster to hit the garment industry which is notorious for poor working conditions.

Volunteers, army personnel and firemen have worked around the clock since Wednesday, mostly using hands and light equipment to pull out survivors. At around midnight on Sunday, authorities deployed hydraulic cranes and heavy cutting machines to break up the massive slabs of concrete into manageable segments

Volunteers India