A woman was pulled alive Friday from the ruins of
a garment factory complex in Bangladesh more than 16 days after it collapsed
and killed over 1,000 people.
The miraculous rescue came shortly after emergency
officials announced that the woman called Reshmi had been located under the
rubble of the nine-storey Rana Plaza complex after crying out for help.
She was found sheltering in the ruins of a
basement mosque.
Rescuers cheered loudly as she was carried to an
army ambulance, managing a faint smile at the crowds who had gathered.
The country’s fire service chief told AFP that
the woman appeared to have had access to water during her marathon ordeal
trapped underneath the wreckage of the nine-storey Rana Plaza complex, which
had caved in on 24 April.
“She has been located in a gap between a beam and
a column. Her name is Reshmi. She may have reserves of water or have drunk some
of the water that we’ve pumped into the building,” Ahmed Ali told AFP.
One of the rescuers said that the woman had cried
out for help as recovery teams sifted through the wreckage in the town of Savar
on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka.
“As we were clearing rubble, we called out if
anyone was alive,” the unnamed rescuer told a private TV channel.
“Then we heard her saying ‘please save me, please save me’.”
Another rescuer said that the woman had had
access to food supplies for the first fortnight of her ordeal but had run out
two days ago.
