Rescuers in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka on Sunday pulled out two survivors from the rubble of a multi-story building more than 24 hours after its collapse killed at least 18 people.
One man crawled toward a hole drilled by firefighters, who pulled him out. The second man was found when rescuers heard his shout from a space between two broken pillars.
The Phoenix building collapsed Saturday as construction workers were converting the upper floors from factory use into a 500-bed medical center. Hospitals in Dhaka are treating more than 40 survivors.
Police are searching for the building's owner.
It was the second disaster in Bangladesh in three days. On Thursday, a fire killed 52 people in a textile factory in Chittagong.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Parliament passed a bill empowering the government to formulate a national building code to ensure construction standards with a provision for punishment in case of non-compliance with the regulations.
Before passage of the bill, both the ruling and opposition lawmakers raised points of order and took part in a brief discussion on the devastating fire in the KTS Composite Textile Mill in Chittagong and the latest collapse of a multi-storey building in Dhaka. They demanded exemplary actions against the building owners and the officials concerned in approving faulty construction designs for those buildings.
The main opposition Awami League lawmakers demanded that a parliamentary probe body be formed with the speaker at the helm to look into the present state of the garment industry and its workers. But the treasury bench did not agree with the proposal. Lawmakers from both sides however blasted the garment factory owners in unison for what they termed was their inhumane treatment of the workers.
Zahurul Alam has more on the story.
