This time, 124 lives so far:
In an stunning cultural juxtaposition, Black Friday merchants counted their profits and victory-pumped shoppers celebrated their “scores” in malls throughout the U.S., while factory workers on the other side of the world who made many of the clothing items shoppers bought this weekend jumped from windows of a seven-story factory in the effort to save their lives in a late Saturday inferno. Many of them were not successful; as of the most recent count, 124 of those workers have died, with many more injured.
In the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka, a large garment run by Tazreen Fashions, one of the many factories in the area that provide product for American companies including Wal-mart, JC Penney’s, the Gap, Levi Strauss, Kohl’s, Zara, H & M, and others, burst into flames Saturday night in a fire (of currently unknown origin) that started on the bottom floor of the building and quickly rushed up the other floors, trapping workers with no way to descend from the building. As India Today reports:
By Sunday morning, firefighters had recovered 115 bodies, fire department Operations Director Maj. Mohammad Mahbub said. He said another 9 people who had suffered injuries after jumping from the building to escape the fire later died at hospitals.
Mahbub said firefighters recovered 69 bodies from the second floor of the factory alone. He said most of the victims had been trapped inside the factory, located just outside of Dhaka, with no emergency exits leading outside the building.
This is how the private marketplace self regulates. Walmart had coded this facility “orange” in an inspection a year ago. Two more successive orange evaluations and Walmart would not source orders in this shop for a year. The reinspections had not happened.