Bangladesh Factory Survivor Pulled From Rubble After 17 Days

CBS: DHAKA, BANGLADESH Bangladesh rescue workers have freed a woman trapped for 17 days in the rubble of a collapsed garment factory, a disaster which had killed more than 1,000. Bangladeshi television showed live video of rescuers carrying the woman, identified as a seamstress named Reshma, out from the mountain of twisted steel and concrete and rushing her to a waiting ambulance. The woman was found on the second floor of the collapsed eight-story building. Speaking to a TV station from her hospital bed, Reshma said she had heard the voices of the searchers in the past several days, and that she kept hitting the debris with sticks and rods to get their attention. But she says nobody heard her. Once she got their attention, the crews ordered the cranes and bulldozers to stop work. They used handsaws and welding and drilling equipment to cut through the debris still trapping her. They gave her water, oxygen and saline as they worked to free her. After 40 minutes, she was free, and a crowd of spectators erupted in wild cheers. She was rushed to a military hospital in an ambulance. She was immediately treated for dehydration, according to local media, but her rescuers said she was in shockingly good condition. She said she survived by eating dried food that was in the area where she was trapped, and by drinking from bottles of water that were with her. CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports that it had been 13 days since the last person was pulled alive from the rubble. The rescue offered an increasingly-rare glimmer of hope as the death toll from the collapse more than two weeks ago soared, with no end in sight to the stream of bodies being pulled from the wreckage of the worst-ever garment industry disaster. Officials said, as of Friday morning, 1,038 bodies had been recovered from the rubble of the fallen building, which had housed five garment factories employing thousands of workers. The disaster has raised alarm about the often-deadly working conditions in Bangladesh’s $20 billion garment industry, which provides clothing for major retailers around the globe.