On July 4, 2017, thirteen people were killed and approximately fifty were injured in a boiler explosion at a Multifab garment factory in Bangladesh’s Gazipur district. The blast collapsed the factory’s walls and roof. Nearby buildings were also damaged.
The cause of the boiler explosion is thought to be improper inspection procedures and the use of outdated machinery. The boiler’s certified period expired on June 24th, nine days before the accident. The boiler had been installed back in 2005. Since the managing director felt that the boiler should be able to last at least twenty-five years, he refused to replace the machinery.
Boiler explosions can be caused by the failure of a safety valve, a low water level, the corrosion of critical parts, poor operator training, poor water treatment, or a fuel or air explosion in the furnace.
Bangladesh is home to more than four thousand garment factories, which tend to pay employees scant wages. Bangladesh follows only China as the second largest garment producer in the world. Preceding the Gazipur incident, the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh collapsed and killed more than one thousand people in 2013. Though safety measures have been reformed since this disaster, there is still an immense need to upgrade old machinery and increase building safety standards.
The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh was signed in 2013 after the Rana Plaza disaster. The agreement was designed as a five-year agreement between retailers and trade unions to establish and enforce safety standards.
The provisions established that Bangladesh factories should maintain a safe work environment, use an independent inspection program, ensure full public disclosure of all safety reports and plans, maintain sufficient funding for proper operation, establish elected health and safety committees in each factory, and increase worker empowerment by way of better training programs, ways to make complaints, and the option to refuse to work in unsafe environments.
Though the Accord aimed to increase workplace safety in Bangladesh, the tragedy in Gazipur serves as evidence that garment factory employees in Bangladesh continue to face dangerous working conditions.
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