Bangladesh is the world’s second leading clothing exporter, after China, and Thursday’s fire again exposed the dangers facing workers in many factories making clothes for consumers in the United States and Europe.
The blaze erupted in the Ashulia industrial district, on the northern tier of Dhaka, at about 9:30 a.m. on the ground floor of Arba Textile Limited. Black smoke poured out of the windows as some workers were injured while rushing to escape. No fatalities were reported and firefighters doused the flames within about two hours.
Labor activists who rushed to the burning factory said they had found clothing labels for Dickies, the name brand of the Williamson-Dickie Manufacturing Company, a storied American business that describes itself as the world’s largest work-wear manufacturer. The discovery was a surprise to the company, said a spokeswoman, Misty Otto.
“We’ve checked and double-checked our files and show no association whatsoever with the Arba Textile factory,” Ms. Otto said in an e-mail.
Abdul Hamid, a senior fire official, said the cause of the blaze was not yet determined. But it erupted in an enclosed, ground-floor room where fabric was stored in the six-story building. Arba Textile rented the first three floors of the building while a second garment factory, Hasmatullah Knitwear, rented the upper three floors.
“The fire did not spread to other floors of the building as it was a locked warehouse,” Officer Hamid said, noting that firefighters had to break through a wall in order to douse the flames in the storage area.
There were conflicting reports on whether Arba Textile had adequate firefighting equipment. Fire officials told Bangladeshi media outlets that the factory lacked proper fire extinguishers and other things. However, Officer Hamid said he thought the factory had an appropriate fire safety license.
Brig. Gen. Ali Ahmed Khan, director general of Bangladesh’s Fire Service, said both factories in the building had been recently granted conditional fire safety licenses through next month. He said inspectors had found shortcomings, notably a lack of on-site water resources in case of fire – a problem that had not been rectified by Thursday. Firefighters were forced to import water from other areas, causing delays in extinguishing the blaze.
“If these factories do not improve their shortcomings within a month, we won’t renew their fire licenses,” he said.
Mohammed Obaidullah, owner of the upstairs knitwear factory, said his workers were able to escape by filing down two staircases that did not pass through the ground-floor storage area. He said his factory had been audited, passing compliance standards, and produces jackets for a European brand marketing in Germany, Turkey and Britain.
International labor rights groups say that hundreds of workers have died in fires in Bangladeshi factories during the past decade. Last November, a fire erupted at the Tazreen Fashions factory, killing 112 people, as workers were making items for Walmart, Sears and other retailers. In that incident, the blaze also began on the ground floor, where the owners had illegally stored huge mounds of fabric without enclosing them in fireproof walls.
As was the case on Thursday, factories often share the same building. Five factories were inside the Rana Plaza building when it collapsed in April, killing 1,129 people, in what is considered the deadliest disaster in the history of the garment industry. Rana Plaza had been shoddily built, atop filled wetlands, yet workers had been ordered inside even after an engineer had examined cracks in the structure and warned the building was unsafe.
Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, and Jim Yardley from New Delhi. Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: June 13, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the owner of Hasmatullah Knitwear, the factory on the upper three floors of the burned building. It is Mohammed Obaidullah, not Obaid Ullah.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/world/asia/another-garment-factory-scare-in-bangladesh.html?partner=rss&emc=rss