More than 600 bodies recovered at factory collapse

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- More than 600 bodies have been recovered from the Bangladesh garment-factory building that collapsed more than a week ago, police said Sunday as the grim recovery work continued in one of the worst industrial accidents ever.

Police said last night that the death toll had reached 622. Well over 200 bodies have been recovered since Wednesday, when authorities said 149 people were listed as missing. The stench of decomposing bodies remains amid the broken concrete of the eight-story Rana Plaza building, and it is anyone's guess how many victims remain entombed.

The April 24 disaster is likely the worst ever at a garment-factory, and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind that caused more deaths. It has surpassed long-ago garment-industry disasters such as Manhattan's Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, which killed 146 workers in 1911, and more recent tragedies such as a 2012 fire that killed about 260 people in Pakistan. One in Bangladesh that same year also killed 112 people.

An architect whose firm designed Rana Plaza said Sunday that it had not been designed to handle heavy industrial equipment, let alone the three floors that were later illegally added. The equipment used by the five garment factories that occupied the building included huge generators that were turned on shortly before the structure crumbled.

Government officials say substandard building materials, combined with the vibration of the heavy machines used by the factories, led to the collapse.

The government had promised to make the garment industry safer after the November factory fire that killed 112 people, saying it would inspect factories for safety and pull the licenses of those that failed. That plan has yet to be implemented.