Course description

Rana Plaza

Gucci, Versace and Benetton are well-known names in the world of European fashion. Their customers are rich and their clothes are very expensive.

But we must ask if the people wearing these famous brands know about the conditions in the factories where the workers make them. Do they know that many of these workers do not earn even BDT 8,000 a month for a six-day week? Do they know that the rooms where people work are hot and uncomfortable? Do they understand that their workplaces are unsafe? Do they care?

Well, on 13^th May, 2013, the customers of these famous brands learnt that the cost of their clothes was not just euros, dollars and pounds but people’s lives too.

Rana Plaza in the Savar upazila in Dhaka was an eight-floor building. On the ground floor, there were shops and banks. On higher floors were garment factories. There were also three floors of the building that the owner, Sohel Rana, built without permission.

The day before, 12^th May, cracks started to appear in the walls, floors and ceilings. Everybody left the building. The next day, the shops and bank stayed closed. But the owner told the garment workers the building was safe and their employers said they must come to work the next day or they could lose a month’s salary.

The next morning at 8 o’clock, the workers arrived but there was a power cut. They switched on the generators and, soon, the building started to shake. Minutes later, it fell down.

1,134 people – mostly, poor people– died and another 2,000 were hurt. Some people lay under the building for weeks until help came. The Government refused help from the United Nations to get these people out.

Rana Plaza was a terrible tragedy, an accident that was unnecessary. It must never happen again!

If you want to watch some videos on this topic, you can click on the links to YouTube videos below.

If you want to answer questions on this article to test how much you understand, you can click on the green box: Finished Reading?

Videos:

1. Rana Plaza Collapse Documentary: The Deadly Cost of Fashion (05:06)

2. Bangladesh: The Rana Plaza Tragedy (02:31)

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