Welcome Guest! You are here: Home » International
Contaminated water leaves hundreds sick in Dhaka garment factory
Thursday June 6, 2013 8:13 PM , IINA

Hundreds of employees of a Bangladesh garment factory near the capital fell sick yesterday after drinking suspected contaminated water in their workplace, police and factory officials said.

"Primarily we suspect the water supply of the Starlight Sweaters factory was poisoned or contaminated," local industrial police officer Mahfuzur Rahman told AFP from Gazipur, a suburb of Dhaka.

Based Ali, the administrative officer of the factory, told AFP the number of affected workers could be as high as 600.

"The workers have been sent to different hospitals after they reported stomach pain and started vomiting. We estimate the number could be up to 600," he said.

The accident follows the collapse of a building housing five garment factories in April that killed 1,129 people, AFP reported.

The tragedy, the industry's worst ever, has led to renewed scrutiny of "made-in-Bangladesh" clothes which are commonly sold in the West.

The factories in the doomed Rana Plaza building just outside Dhaka had made clothing for Western retailers including Italy's Benetton, Britain's Primark and Spain's Mango.

An official from Bangladesh's Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), which represents the country's 4,500 garment plants, said the contamination could have been deliberate.

"We are suspecting that it was poisoning of the water. It could be some sort of pesticide," S.M. Mannan, a vice president of the BGMEA, told AFP.

"This is an A-grade factory. It has its own water supply which comes from a deep tube well, so there is no scope for contamination. Someone might have mixed poison to the water," he said.

Earlier in the day police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at a protest by the families of missing garment workers presumed dead in the factory disaster.

Officials in the Dhaka suburb of Savar, where the building collapsed on April 24, said a thousand-strong-crowd of relatives and garment workers gathered at the site of the wrecked building.

They demanded that authorities publish a full list of missing workers to allow families to claim compensation.

"There were up to 1,000 protesters, they blocked a key highway and staged a sit-in in front of the ruined site for nearly three hours," said local industrial police inspector Amjad Hossain.

Savar police officer Sheikh Fariduddin said his officers clashed with the protesters after they failed to move off the highway and began throwing stones.

"In retaliation, we had to fire rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse them," Fariduddin said.




Share this page
 Comments
Note: By posting your comments here you agree to the terms and conditions of www.ummid.com
comments powered by Disqus
Advertisement
| Quick links
About ummid.com
Contact us
Feedback
Subscribe to: RSS » Facebook » Twitter » Newsletter
Ummid.com: Disclaimer | Terms of Use | Advertise with us | Link Exchange
Ummid.com is part of the Awaz Multimedia & Publications providing World News, News Analysis and Feature Articles on Education, Health. Politics, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Industry etc. The articles or the views displayed on this website are for public information and in no way describe the editorial views. The users are entitled to use this site subject to the terms and conditions mentioned.
© 2012 Awaz Multimedia & Publications. All rights reserved.