Nearly a week after the October 14 fire that killed at least 16 workers at the Anwar Fashion garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, desperate families are still searching for as many as 11 missing workers. Many of the victims were teenage workers 14 years old, if not younger.
Most lived in a nearby slum, packed between chemical warehouses, garment factories and other industrial death traps in the Mirpur neighborhood of the Bangladeshi capital.
The tragedy began when a fire erupted at a chemical warehouse adjacent to Anwar Fashion. Because the garment factory’s door to the roof was padlocked with two locks, the New Age wrote on October 19, the victims could not escape.
“Most died not from burns,” the New Age reported, “but from inhaling the thick, toxic fumes released when chemicals like hydrogen peroxide and bleaching powder exploded, filling the air with poisonous smoke.”
Desperately poor workers are paid a monthly wage of 7,000-7,500 taka (US$57.00-$61.50). Underscoring slave labor conditions at the factory, the sister of one of the victims, a 14-year-old, told The Star: “Just the day before, she said, ‘I’ll leave this factory. There’s never a day off here’.”
Tara Begum said her 14-year-old son, Abdul Alim, had worked at the factory last month but had not been paid. He was instructed to come to the factory October 14 to collect his salary. “None of the bodies at the DMCH (Dhaka Medical College Hospital) morgue looks like my son,” Begum said, adding that she believes her son’s body still lies within the ruins of the devastated factory.
Grim scenes unfolded at the DMCH morgue, where families gathered to identify their loved ones, reported The Star. Among the victims was a recently married couple, Md Joy, 22, and Marzia Sultana Alo, 18. Alo’s uncle said the family managed to identify Joy by the shorts he was wearing under his burnt jeans. Alo was identified through remaining pieces of unburnt clothing.
The blaze burned for 27 hours before firefighters were able to extinguish it. The impact on the environment was so severe that many factories and businesses on adjacent roads remained closed because of lingering toxic fumes in the area.
Facing popular anger over yet another industrial disaster, the Labour and Employment Ministry announced the formation of a seven-member committee to investigate the incident. The ministry said 200,000 taka ($US1,641) in compensation would be paid to each deceased worker’s family and 50,000 taka (US$410.55) for medical treatment for each injured worker.
According to a New Age editorial on October 18, the Anwar Fashion factory had no fire exits, alarms or safety systems and was not registered with any trade or government bodies.
The Star pointed to the rapid expansion in Mirpur of illegal chemical warehouses and small factories, operating for years in defiance of laws and basic safety standards.
The Fire Prevention and Control Act of 2003, the Environment Conservation Rules of 1997 and other regulations, which ostensibly prohibit employers from locating chemical and other hazardous industries in residential areas are looked at as dead letters. Authorities simply turn a blind eye on the operation of such industries, which openly flout basic safety procedures.
This makes clear the dead and injured workers were not the victim of an “accident” but of social murder and the deliberate sacrifice of workers’ lives for corporate profit.
Just two days after the Mirpur incident, another massive fire engulfed a seven-story towel factory in the Chattogram (Chittagong) Export Processing Zone (EPZ), 293 km (182 miles) to the west of Dhaka. At least 20-25 workers were rescued from the Adams Caps & Textiles Ltd factory, and the blaze took 17 hours to control, the Daily Star reported October 18.
Two days later, “A massive fire tore through the cargo complex of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka,” the Star reported, “burning goods stored at the facility, disrupting flights, and causing long delays and diversions.”
Between 2019 and 2023, Bangladesh recorded over 100,000 fires nationwide, many involving chemical substances. In 2022 alone, 24,102 fires caused 85 deaths and injured nearly 400 people. The Centre for Policy Dialogue found that at least 856 factories remain outside the purview of any authority.
Some of the more recent catastrophes included:
- In 2010, a fire at a warehouse that stored chemicals in Nimtali killed 124. Nimtoli is a neighborhood in old Dhaka with densely packed houses and shops, small warehouses and businesses.
- In April 2013, the eight-story Rana Plaza building, containing several garment factories, collapsed because of a structural failure, killing 1,134 workers in Savar Upazila, in the outskirts of Dhaka.
- In 2019, a building storing chemicals and flammable materials in Chawkbazar experienced a massive fire and explosions, killing 71.
- In June 2022, a fire and explosions at a container depot in Sitakunda sub-district, in Chittagong killed at least 47 people.
The ongoing industrial slaughter has not changed the policies of the Bangladeshi capitalist class and foreign investors who reap massive profits from the super-exploitation of the working class.
The response is the same: A disaster occurs; government ministers visit, expressing sorrow for the victims’ families and promising meagre compensation; and an investigation committee is appointed. In the end, however, those responsible are never held to account, the media sweeps the story under the rug, Bangladesh continues to sell itself to international investors as a cheap labor haven, and the victimized families bear the losses forever.
The main state-run organizations responsible for factory inspections and fire fighting are chronically under-resourced in both manpower and finances, the Daily Sun reported.
“Both the Directorate of Inspection of Factories and Establishments (DIFE) and the Fire Service are under pressure due to overload and lack of manpower and administrative constraints, not to mention the corruption and administrative loopholes that allow many irregular factories to continue without fear.”
The workers in Bangladesh are not just super-exploited victims. They have repeatedly demonstrated their determination to fight their industrial slavery, which is also sanctioned by the trade union bureaucracies.
On October 17, the Daily Star reported:
Leading denim exporter Pacific Jeans Group has announced indefinite closure of all eight factories inside the Chattogram Export Processing Zone (CEPZ) following three days of worker unrest and violent clashes...
The decision, effective from October 16, was made after a group of workers from Pacific Jeans Ltd allegedly stopped work, created chaos, and disconnected electrical connections on October 14. They reportedly compelled others to join a walkout and later attacked other units, forcing operations to halt across the group.
Over 35,000 workers are employed at the seven factories, which were closed, out of fear that unrest would spread throughout the free trade zone and interrupt the export of ready-made garments, which accounted for approximately 81.49 percent of the country’s total exports in FY 2024-25, earning $US38.48 billion.
The Mirpur fire incident will be part of a series of other ones, and the facts arisen around this incident suggest that there are no programmes or measures for the crisis-ridden Bangladeshi ruling class to safeguard workers.
The Bangladeshi apparel industry, the second largest apparel exporter in the world, next to China, employs more than four million workers, most of whom are women, working under brutal conditions.
As a result of US President Donald Trump’s 20 percent tariff on apparel imports and rising pressure from retail giants, the Bangladeshi apparel industry is intensifying its exploitation of workers. The unsafe sweatshop conditions are aimed at pushing down the cost of production as much as possible to secure lucrative profits.
Thus, further accidents are inevitable unless workers develop the means to collectively resist through the formation of action committees affiliated with the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, to unite workers in Bangladesh, South Asia and around the world against capitalist exploitation.