ENGINEERING DISASTER BANGLADESH BUILDING COLLAPSE MING WONG JESSE CAMERON

SUMMARY In April 24 th,2013 an eight-floor commercial building in Bangladesh collapsed Before the collapse, warnings from workers about the cracks were ignored The building was found to be placed in a shop and commercial zone Considered deadliest garment-factory accident, caused global outrage

SUMMARY PT.2 During the collapse happened, 3122 workers working inside 1129 died Approximately 2500 injured Factory was produced many major clothing brands including: Walmart, Target, Joe Fresh

CAUSES Architect planned space for retail spaces, not factories Portion of building was built on land that previously contained rubbish Upper four floors had no permit Inspectors found cracks the day before, however, supervisors of the factory declared it safe and workers came back

DISASTER DUE TO… Ignorant building supervisors

LESSONS LEARNED Protest broke out at other factories Families of victims were protesting to demand compensation by the government Clothing brands who had clothes made there responded by agreeing to a new accord on factory safety in Bangladesh Compensation for victims are still under discussion

A) ENGINEERING PROJECTS ARE SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS Attempt to building factory in retail and commercial zone Maybe during the creation of the factory, demand for clothing was high

B) MORAL VALUE Lack of permit to build 4 extra floors was ignored Factory supervisors ignored warning of cracks

C) PERSONAL MEANING Architect knew the ground was weak and not meant for this specific use Architect may not want to disappoint the client Many poor workers needed money, kept working in cramped conditions

D) RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT Inspectors did their jobs correctly, however… Factory supervisors knew they were putting thousands of lives at risk

E) ETHICAL DILEMMAS Workers and the Inspectors were concerned with cracks, however workers still returned due to the supervisors demand

F) MICRO & MACRO Ignore few workers and inspectors request to evacuate, risk thousands of lives

G) DEVELOPMENT Many clothing retailers had factories in Bangladesh, because it was cheap to produce, created large and crowded factories

CITATIONS Wikipedia sources: BBC: The Guardian: desh-building-collapse-unidentified-bodies-buried-video