Death toll rises to 325 in Bangladesh building collapse
Rescuers tunneling Friday into the rubble of the eightstory building that collapsed Wednesday discovered another 50 people trapped on what remained of its third floor, an official said.
Bangladesh Fire Service Deputy Director Maj. Mizamur Rahman said rescuers were hoping to free them within a few hours. As the effort was under way, they dropped food and bottled water to those who called out.
Also Friday, a woman who gave birth under the debris was rescued, along with her infant, a fire service official said, according to the staterun news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS). Earlier, the agency had reported two women had given birth; it did not explain the change.
The news of survival and new life came as the MBT Shoes 72hour deadline to change the operation from rescue to recovery approached, even as hundreds more people were feared still trapped amid the rubble.
Officials coordinating the operation have said the rescue efforts would end Saturday morning, when heavy equipment will be used to retrieve the remaining bodies and cart away the rubble.
"You can see heavy cranes and bulldozers here to quickly remove the concrete debris, but we can't use them at the moment as our prime Nike Free Run objective is to retrieve the people alive first," the military spokesman said Friday.
The planned use of heavy equipment ignited protests from the people who crowded near the rescue site, many of them relatives who were showing pictures of the missing to whomever would pay attention and saying they did not believe 72 hours was long enough to wait.
Police used tear gas to disperse them, BSS reported.
Sajjad Hussein, communications officer for Transparency International Bangladesh, told CNN from the scene that hundreds of relatives of victims were thronging a local school were Asics Onitsuka Tiger bodies were being kept.