Messengers so often get shot

It’s hard yet to know whether the Razzak Plaza building in Bangladesh is about to collapse, or just has a few spots of cracking plaster. Without wishing to make light of a possible tragedy, our house has got cracks everywhere. But it’s stayed up for 300 years. On the evidence so far, drawing attention to them might be more dangerous than working in the building

Yesterday (June 25) a TV programme on an independent Bangladesh channel carried a story about cracks appearing in the Razzak Plaza building – like the Rana Plaza, in Savar. Some media claim they’ve been there for months – but the building doesn’t just house shops, but about 6,000 garment workers in Juvian Sweaters, Pacific Blue (Jeans Wear) Ltd., and Al Muslim Garments on its 4th till 8th floors. So, no-one in authority is taking any chances.

At 0730, Bangladesh time, today, inspectors  from the BGMEA, the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology  and Dhaka district administration turned up at the building, found the cracks, and after a few meetings, the local authority ordered the building closed.

At which point, shop owners and some garment workers turned on TV reporter correspondent Nazmul Hossain, who had reported the “cracks” story the previous night, and started beating him up. The shop owners were out of pocket, and it wasn’t clear whether the 6,000 garment workers were going to be paid for the day off. None of them liked the idea of an income-free day, and apparently couldn’t see why the building needed to be closed.

Right now, we don’t know how serious the threat of collapse is. But the workers know how serious the threat of a day without wages is, and clearly think Hossain is profiting from their problems. Especially since the cracks don’t seem recent, and they’ve all been happily working.

It’s not that the workers would rather be sorry than safe. It’s that they know (or think they know) their building. They were working more or less happily there till last night, when some TV reporter told everyone it was unsafe.

Now all these people turn up from the Council, and they’ve closed the factory. The workers don’t know when they’ll be working again – and they’ve got bills to pay. All because of some sensationalist TV reporter.

Who among us wouldn’t want to take a flyer at him?