Fours year have passed since the Tazreen Fashions fire but Asma Akter, an injured worker of the apparel factory, is still not fully recovered physically. She feels severe pain in her torso, which prevents her from partaking in any heavy-duty work. “I do not feel 100 percent physically still, so I cannot work hard,” she told The Daily Star. Asma was folding clothes on the third floor of the factory, located in the industrial belt of Ashulia, on this day of 2012 when a fire broke on the ground floor that went on to claim 113 lives and gravely injured more than 200. As soon as the fire broke out, Asma heard the cries of her co-workers from the ground floor. But the production managers on her floor paid no heed to the screams, instead ordered them to concentrate on the task at hand. But within minutes, fire and thick smoke engulfed the entire eight-storey building. “I was lucky on the day of the incident. I jumped through a hole in the wall from the third floor — I did not know where I fell as I was senseless.” People on the spot rushed her to the hospital, where she stayed for 17 days. Asma is so traumatised from the incident that she refuses to take up a job in a garment factory. “I can still remember my co-workers were screaming, crying and wailing that night. Many of them died right in front of me.” Many could have survived if the doors were not locked, said the 30-year-old who hails from Trishal of Mymensingh district. Asma, who used to draw as much as Tk 6,000 a month from Tazreen Fashions, is jobless now because of her physical condition. Following the accident, the victims were given money by different organisations, prime minister’s relief fund, international retailers and non-governmental organisations. The Tazreen Claims Administration Trust, which used the same methodology to hand out compensation as the Rana Plaza Arrangement, gave about Tk 17 crore ($2.17 million) to the families of the 103 deceased workers and 10 missing workers and to 174 injured workers. Asma, a mother of two, received nearly Tk 5 lakh from Tazreen Claims Adminis-tration and other donor agencies, which she parked in an account with a private bank. She has left the amount untouched as she plans to build a tin-shed house in her village. Right now, her family of four gets by with the earnings from her husband’s modest tailoring shop at Nishchintapur in Ashulia. They live nearby in a single room that costs Tk 2,750 every month. “It is very difficult to run our family with so little income but I will not take up a garment job again even if the salary is very high,” Asma added. Her husband Shahenur Islam Liton also used to work as an operator in the same factory. But he left the factory a few months before the incident. Liton said he has to spend a handsome amount of money on purchasing medicine for his wife. The rest of the 200 injured workers are living in the same appalling conditions, with most of them being jobless. Nargis Akter, who also worked in Tazreen Fashions, said she cannot work due to physical inability. Like Asma, Delwara Begum Sumi, another injured worker, is so traumatised that she is afraid of taking up a job in a garment factory again.
