Published time: May 10, 2013 15:13
A young woman trapped in the rubble of the collapsed eight-story building in Bangladesh for 17 days has been found alive, and suffered no major physical injuries.
“I never dreamed I’d see the daylight again,” Reshma
Begum told local Somoy TV from her hospital room, where she was
taken after being pulled out of debris in front of a crowd in Dhaka
that chanted “Allah is great!”
When Rana Plaza, a huge block of garment factories, caved in on
April 24, the seamstress was trapped in a room on the second floor,
with three dead colleagues. She survived by rummaging through their
bags for supplies.
“There was some dried food around me,” she said. “I ate the
dried food for 15 days. The last two days I had nothing but water.
I used to drink only a limited quantity of water to save it. I had
some bottles of water around me.”
As the workers, who had not pulled anyone out alive since April
28, and had been operating with bulldozers, got closer, she
summoned her remaining strength.
“I heard voices of the rescue workers for the past several
days. I kept hitting the wreckage with sticks and rods just to
attract their attention.”
Luckily, she was heard, and the machinery was immediately
stopped. Rescuers then spent 40 minutes trying to extract Begum
safely, and passed her water and saline.
“Allah, you are the greatest, you can do anything. Please
allow us all to rescue the survivor just found. We seek apology for
our sins. Please pardon us, pardon the person found alive,”
said a man with a loudspeaker in front of the gathering crowd at
the scene.
Police said Begum was not injured because she was trapped in a
“wide space”, and is already healthy enough to walk.
The miraculous rescue has been seized on by Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina, who was
This article originally appeared on : RT