The Rana Plaza collapse (also referred to as the Savar building collapse) occurred on 24 April 2013 in Savar Upazila, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, when the nine-story Rana Plaza commercial building collapsed due to a structural failure. The search for survivors lasted for 19 days and ended on 13 May 2013, with a confirmed death toll of 1,134. Approximately 2,500 injured people were rescued from the building. It is considered to be one of the deadliest structural failures in modern human history, as well as the deadliest garment-factory disaster in history, and is the deadliest industrial accident in the history of Bangladesh. Amnesty International called it "the most shocking recent example of business-related human rights abuse."
The building housed five garment factories, a bank, and apartments. It was constructed in 2006 on the site of a former pond, and was built without proper permits. The fifth through eighth floors were added onto the building without supporting walls; the heavy equipment from the garment factories was more than the structure could support. On 23 April 2013, large cracks were discovered in the building. The shops and the bank on the lower floors immediately closed, but the garment factory owners on the upper floors ignored the warnings and the workers returned to work the following day. On 24 April, the building collapsed at 9:00 am local time, trapping thousands of people inside.
The court in Bangladesh formally charged 38 people with murder, along with the building owner Sohel Rana. Rana was arrested after a four-day manhunt, as he attempted to flee across the border to India. A total of 41 defendants faced charges over the collapse of the complex. Of the 41 people charged, 35 (including Rana) appeared before the court and plead not guilty. Rana was not granted bail. He was charged with corruption again in 2017 and jailed three years for failing to submit his wealth statements; the trials continue to this day.
The collapse of Rana Plaza was a major turning point for the global fashion industry. It led to widespread protests and international outrage over unsafe working conditions in developing nations. In the aftermath, the Bangladesh government passed new laws requiring all garment factories to be inspected by a government-approved agency. Furthermore, facing intense public pressure, over 200 global fashion brands and retailers—including major corporations like H&M and Zara, who sourced heavily from Bangladesh—partnered with global trade unions to establish the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Established in 2013, this independent, legally binding agreement primarily sought to reform and ensure the health and safety of workers across the country's Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry.
Rana Plaza was built in 2006 and owned by Sohel Rana—allegedly a member of the local unit of Jubo League (the youth wing of Bangladesh Awami League, the political party in power). It housed a number of separate garment factories, employing around 5,000 people, plus ground-level shops and a bank. The factories manufactured apparel for international brands including Benetton, Zara, The Children's Place, El Corte Inglés, Joe Fresh, Mango, Matalan, Primark, and Walmart.
The head of the Bangladesh Fire Service & Civil Defence, Ali Ahmed Khan, said that the upper four floors had been built without a permit. Rana Plaza's architect, Massood Reza, said the building was "planned for shops and offices, but not factories". Other architects stressed the risks involved in placing factories inside a building designed only for shops and offices, noting the structure was potentially not strong enough to bear the weight and vibration of heavy machinery.
On 23 April 2013 (one day before the collapse), a TV channel reported on and showed footage of cracks in the Rana Plaza building. Upon this broadcast, the building was evacuated, and the shops and the bank on the lower floors were closed. Later in the day, Sohel Rana told the media that the building was "safe", and that workers "should return" the following day. Reportedly, management at Ether Tex threatened to withhold a month's pay from workers who refused to come back to work.
On the morning of 24 April, there was a power outage and diesel generators on the top floor were started. At 08:54 am BST, loud vibrations and rumbling noises erupted on the top floors and spread throughout Rana Plaza, causing many workers to leave their positions and rush towards the exits, but the structural failure started less than a minute later. The building collapsed completely at about 08:57 am BST, leaving only the ground floor intact. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association president confirmed that 3,122 workers were in the building at the time of the collapse. One local resident described the scene as if "an earthquake had struck."
The United Nations' urban search and rescue coordination group – known as the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) – offered assistance from its members, but the government of Bangladesh rejected this offer. The government made a statement, suggesting that the area's local rescue emergency services were sufficiently well-equipped. Before offering assistance to Bangladesh, the United Nations held consultations and reviews to assess the government's ability to mount an effective rescue operation, reaching the conclusion that they lacked that capability. Bangladeshi officials, desiring to take "face-saving" actions and protect national sensibilities, still refused to accept the assistance offered to them by the UN. A large portion of the rescue operation consisted of inadequately-equipped volunteers, many of whom wore no protective clothing or gear, with mere sandals on their feet. Some buried survivors drank their own urine to survive the high temperatures while waiting to be saved. The Bangladeshi government was accused of favouring national pride over those buried alive; many relatives of those trapped in the debris criticised the government for trying to end the rescue mission prematurely.
One of the garment manufacturers' websites indicates that more than half of the victims were women, along with a number of their children who were in nursery facilities within the building. Bangladeshi Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir confirmed that fire service personnel, police and military personnel were assisting with the rescue effort. Volunteer rescue workers used bolts of fabric to assist survivors to escape from the building. 1,700 injured were taken to Enam Medical College and Hospital and 105 to National Institute of Traumatology. A national day of mourning was held on 25 April.
On 8 May, army spokesman Mir Rabbi said the army's attempt to recover more bodies from the rubble would continue for at least another week. On 10 May, 17 days after the collapse, a woman named Reshma was found and rescued alive, and almost unhurt, under the rubble. Their were however reports of the rescue being hoax by some outlets.
The direct reasons for the building problems were:
The building having been built on a filled-in pond, which compromised structural integrity,
Conversion from commercial use to industrial use,
Unauthorised addition of four floors not included in the original building permit,
The use of substandard construction material (which led to an overload of the building structure aggravated by vibrations due to the generators and heavy industrialised machinery).
Those various elements indicated dubious business practices by Sohel Rana and dubious administrative practices in Savar.
The collapse of the building was preceded by a number of administrative failures, leading to early warning signs being ignored. It was reported that the industrial police first requested the evacuation of the building until an inspection had been conducted. It was also reported that Abdur Razak Khan, an engineer, declared the building unsafe and requested public authorities to conduct a more thorough inspection; he was arrested for helping the owner illegally add three floors. Kabir Hossain Sardar, the Upazila Nirbahi Officer who visited the site, met with Sohel Rana and declared the building safe. Sohel Rana said to the media that the building was safe and workers should return to work the next day. One manager of the factories in the Rana Plaza reported that Sohel Rana told them that the building was safe. Managers then requested the workers to go back to work. Managers at Ether Tex threatened to withhold a month's pay from workers who refused to come to work. As a result, workers also returned to the factories the next day.