Risk register · entry
Q1 · PredictableRana Plaza collapse
Cracks aired on TV the night before. Refuse the shift, lose a month's pay. They went in.
Documented, foreseeable risks that were ignored anyway. The failure is attention, not information.
Why this quadrant
Cracks were found on 23 April 2013, the building was evacuated, the bank and the shops on the lower floors closed, and the defect was shown on national television. Every party with the authority to stop production knew. The owner declared the building safe and factory management reportedly told workers they would lose a month's pay if they did not return. Nothing new was learned overnight. 1,134 people died the next morning.
The record
- The eight-storey building collapsed on 24 April 2013 at about 08:57 local time; the search ended after 19 days on 13 May 2013 with a confirmed death toll of 1,134 and approximately 2,500 injured rescued.certain
- The structure was permitted for shops and offices; four additional floors (5-8) were added without permits, and it was loaded with heavy garment machinery and rooftop diesel generators it was never designed to carry.high
- Large cracks were discovered and televised on 23 April 2013, the day before the collapse; the bank and lower-floor shops closed, but garment workers were ordered back the next morning, with management at Ether Tex reportedly threatening to withhold a month's pay from anyone who refused.high
- Approximately 3,122 workers were inside across five garment factories at the moment of collapse, and at least 29 global brands had orders with those factories.medium
- The ILO-chaired Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund, established January 2014, reached its USD 30 million target on 8 June 2015, more than two years after the collapse; by April 2015 over 2,800 claimants had received awards covering about 70% of the total.certain
Sources
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