Toll in Bangladesh building collapse rises to 540

In this April 30, 2013 photo, a woman grieves as she sticks a portrait of her family member on the wall of a school-turned-make-shift morgue in Savar, near Dhaka. The death toll from the April 24 building collapse in Savar crossed 400 on Wednesday.

The toll from a building collapse in Bangladesh rose to 540 as the rescuers found more bodies in the wreckage on Saturday,officials said.

Fifteen bodies were recovered overnight and dozens of people were still unaccounted after the eight-storey building that housed five garment factories collapsed April 26 in Savar, 25 kilometers north-west of Dhaka.

Army Brigadier General Siddiqul Alam Sikder said put the number of missing at about 50 from a previous list of 149.

He said 127 bodies remained unclaimed so far.

More than 2,400 people were injured in the industrial disaster that put Bangladesh under pressure to meet international labour standards for its garment industry, which accounts for 79 per cent of the country’s export earnings.

The garment manufacturers’ association asked its nearly 3,500 members Friday to submit plans by May 30 for factory buildings to be examined by an expert panel, amid fears that international retailers may pull out of Bangladesh unless safety is improved.

Police have arrested the building’s owners, as well as the owners of the factories housed in it, for negligence.

Workers were evacuated from the Rana Plaza after major cracks developed in the building, but factory owners reportedly forced employees back to work on the day of the collapse.