At least 21 people killed in latest tragedy to spotlight poor safety standards in South Asia

November 5, 2015 1:00PM ET

Rescuers at the site of a collapsed four-story factory building in eastern Pakistan continued to dig through the rubble on Thursday, as the death toll rose to 21, officials said, describing the latest tragedy to spotlight poor safety standards in South Asia.

Rescue officials said 102 survivors had so far been pulled from the wreckage of the factory, which manufactured polythene shopping bags 12 miles south of the eastern city of Lahore, and collapsed on Wednesday night.

"The building collapsed more than 24 hours ago and we have a hope to find more survivors," Jam Sajjad Hussain, a spokesman from the state rescue agency, told The Associated Press.

Earlier, officials estimated as many as 250 people – including women and children – had been in the building when it collapsed, Pakistani news site Dawn.com reported citing local authorities. Rescuers had to move slowly, government officials said, to avoid further injuries to those still trapped.

Muhammad Ramzan, 22, one of the survivors, said that he had witnessed cracks appearing in the structure moments before it collapsed.

"Suddenly, I saw cracks appearing in the pillars. I immediately drew the owner’s attention towards the cracks. He was watching them when the roof collapsed and I saw him being crushed by a heap of concrete that led to his death," he told Reuters.

Many survivors were able to guide rescuers by calling relatives using their mobile phones.

"I ran towards the stairs but they collapsed before I reached there and then the whole building collapsed. I stayed in touch with my father on phone and was recovered after 13 hours,” said Mohammad Asghar, 16, who suffered a broken arm and a head injury.

The cause of the collapse is yet to be determined. It happened just over a week after a 7.5-magnitude earthquakehit Pakistan, killing 273 people and damaging nearly 75,000 homes.

Injured survivors said the factory's owner, who was adding a new floor to the building, had ignored advice from his contractor and pleas from his workers to stop construction after cracks in the walls followed the earthquake.

Pakistan's construction sector is plagued by poor oversight and developers frequently flout building codes.

In September 2012, 289 people burned to death in a fire at a garment factory in the southern city of Karachi. On the same day, a fire at a shoe factory in Lahore killed 25.

The U.S. Department of Defense spent an estimated $43 million to build a single compressed natural gas (CNG) station in Afghanistan, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said Monday. It is the latest example  of alleged overspending identified by the office, the federal government’s oversight authority for reconstruction in the country.

SIGAR’s report called the plan to build a CNG filling station in the small northern Afghan city of Sheberghan “ill conceived” and said it came at an “exorbitant cost to U.S. taxpayers.” The report noted that the station should have cost roughly $500,000.

“Even considering security costs associated with construction and operation in Afghanistan, this level of expenditure appears gratuitous and extreme,” SIGAR said in its report.

The $43 million CNG station constructed in Afghanistan by the Task Force for Stability and Business Operations.

Central Asia Development Group / SIGAR

The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Al Jazeera.

SIGAR’s report was based on a study by the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), established by the Department of Defense in 2006 to bolster the economies of post-U.S.-occupation Iraq and Afghanistan.

The TFBSO study showed that the Department of Defense spent $42,718,739 from 2011 to 2014 to build the gas station and that its goal was to further Afghanistan’s reliance on its own natural resources.

From 1980 to 2012, Afghanistan imported 100 percent of its refined petroleum products, the report said, adding that CNG “costs approximately 50 percent less than a comparable amount of gasoline in Afghanistan and burns cleaner than gasoline.”

The SIGAR report blasted the Department of Defense for failing to provide an explanation for the overspending.

“One of the most troubling aspects of this project is that the Department of Defense claims that it is unable to provide an explanation for the high cost the project or to answer any other questions concerning its planning, implementation or outcome,” the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, John F. Sopko, said in a letter to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter that accompanied the report.

Sopko told Al Jazeera in June that the United States has been wasteful in Afghanistan. He said Washington built “things that didn’t work; things that the Afghans didn’t know about, didn’t want or can’t use; and things that can’t be sustained.”

“We identified, for example, $400 [million] to $500 million for airplanes that the U.S. purchased for the Afghan air force. The Afghan air force couldn’t use them. They were the wrong planes for the country. They basically had to be destroyed, and we got three cents on the dollar,” he said.

SIGAR in December 2014 published a report saying that U.S. development authorities failed to track the results of millions of dollars spent to improve medical care and professional training for women in Afghanistan.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Afghanistan's capital on Wednesday with coffins carrying the bodies of seven ethnic Hazara demanding justice after their beheadings. 

The protests included women and men from Afghanistan's different ethnic groups - Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara - as they marched on the Presidential Palace to urge the government to take action against rising violence against Afghan civilians. 

According to Afghan officials, the Hazara hostages were captured by ISIL fighters more than a month ago and held in Arghandab district of Zabul province.

ISIL and the Taliban

Four men, two women, and a child had been beheaded with razor wire, officials said. The Hazaras were abducted in Ghazni and their bodies were later found in Zabul province. 

"We will continue to fight for the safety of our family," civil rights activist Shahzaman Hashemi told Al Jazeera. "This is our right to feel safe. Whatever happened to those women and children can happen to us as well."

Thousands Afghan gathered protesting against the murder of seven people from the minority Hazara community (Maryam Mehtar/Al Jazeera English)

The Afghan government announced a national day of mourning on Wednesday over the killings.

'Had enough'

Maryam Jamal, who also took part in the march, said it was important to pressure the government to halt the escalating violence in the country. "They've now started killing women and children," she said. 

"It can be me tomorrow, can be my children. This protest is historic and we are adamant to not back off until something is done about this. We've had enough."

Kabul Police Chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi told Al Jazeera security officers had taken control of the protest area and were making sure no one gets hurt during the demonstrations. 

"There are thousands of people here and the number is expected to increase. People from far off places have come to Kabul to take part in the protest today," Rahimi said. "We are making sure the protest doesn't get violent. So far people are protesting peacefully."

Demonstrators chanted "death to Islamic State" on Tuesday in Ghazni province as a van carried the coffins covered by Afghan flags. Ghazni police blamed the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Afghanistan for the grisly killings.