Rana Plaza - 5 years later

For the fifth time, people around the world will commemorate the anniversary of the worst industrial disaster, the most devasting blow to the garment sector - Rana Plaza. On April 23, 2013 the Rana Plaza building in Savar, close to Dhaka in Bangladesh, collapsed. The building housed five garment factories and the accident took the lives of 1,138 workers; in addition. more than 2,500 were injured. Tragically, most - if not all - of the deaths and injuries could have been avoided had the garment workers been allowed to evacuate the building early like other workers in the building.

Five years after Rana Plaza

FashionUnited has put together a timeline of events from that tragic day in April 2013 to the most current developments. Most recently, the transition of the old Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, which runs out at the end of the year, to the new one. At the same time, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety comes to an end as well and is looking for local stakeholders to take over. All the while, accidents still happen at garment factories in Bangladesh and elsewhere and the apparel supply chain could do with more transparancy.

Use the arrows to navigate through the events ordered by date or click on a timeframe (in the grey bar) to learn more.

Photo: Zakir Hossain Chowdhury / ANADOLU AGENCY