Such hand wringing in a fire's aftermath is by now a studied ritual. Bangladesh's garment industry is barely 15 years old, but the business has grown so rapidly that it accounts for 76 percent of the nation's exports. Since 1995, there have been 30 of these fires, with 17 involving fatalities, according to one labor group that has maintained a list. Factories are often makeshift enterprises, many of them in the rented upper floors of Dhaka's decrepit downtown buildings. Workers trudge up the narrow stairs, ready to stitch bright fabric beneath the whirling bobbins.
Electrical wiring is frequently a jangle of overloaded circuits.
The posttragedy ritual is not a prolonged one, however. Reports of investigators are expediently moved along the bureaucracy's chain of command and then into oblivion. Accountability, so keenly demanded at first, is never quite determined at last. One more tangible result is a short period of haggling. Bereaved families expect compensation for lost loved ones.