Striking a Familiar Zoonotic Pathogen Chord

International arrivals at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok face extra screenings following the outbreak in India. (Suvarnabhumi Airport Office /Handout via Reuters)

"Nipah virus (NiV) is a member of the Henipavirus genus of the Paramyxoviridae family and is a zoonotic virus with a high case fatality rate. Our knowledge of the geographic distribution of NiV and the disease it causes, mode of pathogen transmission, and clinical manifestations of infection, have evolved over time."

"The first recognized human infection was in the Malaysian village of Kampung Sungai Nipah in 1998, initiating a deadly outbreak that lasted through 1999. Smaller sporadic outbreaks have since recurred nearly annually within South Asia with case fatality rates reaching greater than 90%."

National Library of Medicine...National Center for Biotechnology Information 

Black flying fox bats ... World Health Organization

 

Nipah virus infection in humans causes a range of clinical presentations, from asymptomatic infection (subclinical) to acute respiratory infection and fatal encephalitis.

The case fatality rate is estimated at 40% to 75%. This rate can vary by outbreak depending on local capabilities for epidemiological surveillance and clinical management.

Nipah virus can be transmitted to humans from animals (such as bats or pigs), or contaminated foods and can also be transmitted directly from human-to-human.

Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are the natural host of Nipah virus.

There is no treatment or vaccine available for either people or animals. The primary treatment for humans is supportive care.

The 2018 annual review of the WHO R&D Blueprint list of priority diseases indicates that there is an urgent need for accelerated research and development for the Nipah virus. WHO 

Confirmation of an outbreak of Nipah virus in West Bengal, India, led to southwest Asia airports placed on alert. Checkpoints for passengers from West Bengal were implemented by Thailand on Sunday, while Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control announced that it planned to list the disease as a Category 5 threat. The Indian Ministry of Health confirmed two cases of the zoonotic infection, with 200 close contacts being monitored and tested. 

 

Nipah has a fatality rate of 40 to 70 percent, according to the Centers for Disease control and Prevention. No vaccine has yet been produced against the virus and there is no cure for Nipah virus. Outbreaks of Nipah occur annually in South Asia, while more broadly global awareness of the virus remains low. Transmitted to people from animals, the virus can be contracted from direct contact with infected animals, primarily flying fox bats and pigs.

Nipah virus has a fatality rate in humans of up to 75 per cent. (Reuters: CK Thanseer)

 

Fruit contaminated by these animals can be a source of infection for the unsuspecting. Raw date palm juice produced with sap contaminated by fruit  bats has been linked to outbreaks in Bangladesh. The virus, once it makes the leap from a contaminated animal's tissues or secretions, can readily spread person-to-person through close physical contact.

Scientists in Bangladesh have previously caught bats to test them for the virus. (Reuters: Mohammad Ponir Hossain, file)

 

A major outbreak among pig farmers in 1999 Malaysia killed over a hundred people, and this was the world's introduction to the presence of the virus,  highly contagious among pigs. Nipah outbreaks occur almost annually in Asia, most frequently in Bangladesh and India. A 'predictable season pattern' has emerged as routine outbreaks in Bangladesh between December and April, a research paper published in the Journal of Infection and Public Health established.

 

That research linked the pattern to peak harvesting season for raw date palm sap, a cultural delicacy and tradition, where fruit bats frequently live among date trees. The Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia have also been host to outbreaks. "This represents a return of Nipah to this area after a long gap, which is concerning from a surveillance standpoint", pointed out Lauren Sauer, director, Special Pathogen Research Network at University of Nebraska Medical Center.

 

Within days of infection symptoms including fever, headache, cough, muscle pain and difficulty breathing emerge. Patients may experience neurological symptoms such as  brain swelling as the infection progresses. Patients who survive brain swelling (encephalitis or brain inflammation) can recover but still face a future life of consequences including seizure disorders.

 

No licensed treatments exist for Nipah, nor are there any available vaccines.  

 

In 2018 the World Health Organization  marked Nipah as a priority pathogen urgently requiring accelerated research and development particular to the virus. 

  

Dhaka building collapse: Woman pulled alive from rubble

BBC News online - 10 May 2013

The BBC's Akbar Hossain: "People here are extremely surprised." Photo courtesy Shariful Islam

A woman has been pulled alive from the ruins of an eight-storey building that collapsed in a suburb of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, 17 days ago. 

Rescuers said the woman, named Reshma, was found in the remains of the second floor of the Rana Plaza after they heard her crying: "Please save me."

She has been taken to hospital, but is not thought to have serious injuries.
More than 1,000 are now confirmed to have died, most of them women working in clothes factories.
The authorities said 2,437 people had been rescued, of whom about 1,000 had suffered serious injuries.

Reshma: "I kept banging whatever I could with my legs but no-one could hear me"

Dozens lost limbs as they were cut free from the wreckage.

The accident is one of the deadliest industrial disasters in history.
Crews using heavy machinery have begun removing rubble from the worst-damaged areas, and are expecting to find more bodies.

Brig-Gen Siddiqul Alam said rescuers had found a huge number of bodies under staircases.
"When the building started to collapse, workers thought they would be safe under the staircases. Each time we moved a slab of concrete, we found a stack of bodies," he said.

Soldiers were reported to have been preparing to break through a large concrete slab at about 15:15 local time (10:15 GMT) on Friday when the woman was discovered.

The worker who first discovered her told the BBC Bengali service: "I was cutting iron rods when I suddenly found a silvery stick just moving from a hole.

"I looked closer and heard someone calling 'Please save me'. I immediately called over soldiers and firefighters."

Officers ordered workers operating heavy machinery to stop, and rescuers used video and audio detection equipment to locate her exact position.

Crews saw a woman waving her hand, and she shouted "I'm still here" and told rescuers her name was Reshma.

Within minutes, hundreds of soldiers and firefighters rushed to the scene to help clear the rubble, says the BBC's Akbar Hossain in Dhaka.

The woman said that she was not badly hurt, and she was given water and biscuits while handsaws and drilling equipment were brought in to cut through iron rods and debris.

Rubble survivor records

• Naqsha Bibi - buried for 63 days in what had been her kitchen after 2005 Pakistan quake; survived on rotten food and water
• Evans Monsignac - trapped for 27 days in the rubble after 2010 Haiti tremor; stayed alive by drinking sewage water
• Park Seung Hyun - pulled from the wreckage of a supermarket in South Korea in 1995, 16 days after it collapsed; drank rainwater
• Pedrito Dy - spent 14 days in the ruins of a hotel after the 1990 Philippines tremor; drank water and urine

Rescuers worked for 40 minutes before finally pulling her from the rubble, amid cheers from the crowd.

She was taken to an ambulance and then rushed to the nearby Combined Military Hospital for evaluation and treatment.

She later told local TV from her hospital bed that she never dreamt she would see daylight again.
"I heard voices of the rescue workers for several days. I kept hitting the wreckage with sticks and rods to attract their attention. No-one heard me," she said.

"I ate dried food for 15 days. The last two days I had nothing but water."

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whose government has been criticised for lax oversight of the clothing industry, spoke to the woman on the telephone.

Ms Hasina was reportedly flying to the hospital by helicopter to meet her.

Rana Plaza had housed several factories that made clothes for companies including Western retailers.
A preliminary government report suggested the collapse was been triggered when electricity generators switched on during a blackout.

At least nine people have been arrested over the accident, including the owner of the building and several factory bosses.

Global Responsibilities

We're still agonizing. Not that it's wrong that we do this, we should. That well over 400 people, impoverished garment workers in Bangladesh have lost their lives as a result of miserable cupidity and an absolute lack of interest in the welfare of others' well-being deserves an agony of sadness. Introspection of a very personal kind also followed, and while that's not entirely misplaced, it's not all that useful, either.

Except, in a very real sense, to draw sharp comparisons between rules and regulations, justice and security obtainable and reliable in socially, culturally, technologically advantaged and economically advanced countries of the world for whom an obligation to their citizenry is close to absolute, should governing bodies anticipate the goal of re-election in their democracies.

So, what motivates the garment industry to look outside its own countries for the inexpensive production of goods for sale at the lowest possible price while still guaranteeing profit? A single word will suffice: profit. But there are those in the industry, particularly those in Canada who articulate a second motivation, one of moral responsibility, to advance the prospects of those living in third-world countries.

A contention that cannot be entirely dismissed out of hand. North American garment manufactories were once very similar to their Asian counterparts; goods were produced cheaply because wages were kept low, and people worked in Canada and the United States in sometimes dangerous conditions, and they had no rights under inadequate and sometimes absent laws that then prevailed with respect to decent working conditions.

There are still manufacturers of wearing apparel in North America; they pay their workers fair wages and safe and decent working conditions are mandated by law. Needless to say, what they produce is more costly both to produce and to purchase by the consumer. But not always, since there is a considerable mark-up in goods produced in Asia when their labels happen to be elite brand-names.

That said, it isn't entirely correct to believe that companies that contract-out to Asian manufacturers are complicit with the corrupt practises of low-wage, high-incident of human rights abuses that are all too common in third-world countries where the employed have little recourse to the adjudication of fairness and justice in working conditions.

First-world buyers of third-world products, fully aware of scandals that can erupt from time to time, have an eye to foisting their own standards on those who would do business with them, and they do make demands that workers be treated fairly, in relation to standards prevalent in the country in which they toil. Which is why, we are informed, garment-factory work is considered preferable than other work available in those countries.

Where work is often scarce, and wages are rock-bottom, enabling workers to just get by, with little to no fall-back on slim social welfare available through government auspices, because there is none. The presence of foreign companies with their industrial consciences, also empowers poor workers. And, apart from refusing to do business altogether with manufacturers in third-world countries like Bangladesh, there is often little that can be done about the prevalence of corruption.

Where government bodies tasked to ensure that minimum standards in workplace conditions, let alone engineering, architecture and building materials meet other, necessary standards to ensure maximum reliability and minimum episodes of catastrophic collapse, fail. Because government oversight bodies and their bureaucracies fail to exercise due diligence when bribes are expected and are given.

Doing business in far-off countries whose standards do not meet the more stringent ones of well-managed economies is an option that has its advantages, clearly. And while there are companies that don't really care about outcomes and conscientious standards, because their bottom line is the end of the line as far as they're concerned, there are also counterparts for whom this is not true, who insist on operating to a standard of honourable decency.

Operation of manufacturing facilities, inclusive of wages is significantly less than elsewhere, because these are poverty-stricken countries, whose population just manage to keep their heads above water. There is a stark divide in privilege, with those in power and the cultural elite can amass wealth, while the great majority flounder in a never-ending cycle of endurance.

But those same people who work for what seems to western sensibilities a pittance, have few other alternatives other than to work at anything they can find which will offer a remuneration even more slight than at garment factories. Boycotting the wares produced do no one any good, factories will close and people will be without the opportunity to manage altogether, to feed themselves and their families.

But the constant pressure that is exerted by the outside, more privileged world, on country elites eager to see their export opportunities grow, enabling them to become wealthy, has its effect on the disentitled as well. At one time China was in that unfavoured position; it has since become a powerful producer of all manner of goods, exporting their products world-wide, and as a result a large middle-class has emerged.

How To React?

"He used to intimidate people whenever he needed them, like bringing people out for street marches in support of the lawmaker. Neighbours would avoid him ... No one wanted to upset him.
"He doesn't belong to any particular political party. Whatever party is in power, he is there."
Ashrafuddin Khan Imu, Awami League leader

"The building has minor damages. There is nothing serious."
Mohammed Sohel Rana

Mohammed Sohel Rana, an uneducated oaf who just happens to have political connections -- in either of Bangladesh's two major political parties capable of holding government office, a local enforcer, and a fairly wealthy landowner has been arrested. He will doubtless be made to stand trial; after all, the world is looking on. Almost 400 impoverished Bangladeshi workers died horribly in the mangled collapse of the eight-story building he had built to house apparel factories.

There are still hundreds of people missing. Authorities have moved in, however, informing the rescuers that their job is finished. After the passage of a week since the collapse of the Rana Plaza building it is hugely unlikely that anyone would be left alive, yet to be rescued. The one lone voice still calling for rescue was stilled when a fire broke out and the rescuers were forced to leave. Once the fire was put out there was not another sound heard from within the wreckage.

It is a scene of utter devastation and horror, with the nauseating odour of death and decay, a visual nightmare signifying a society's failure at protecting the vulnerable among them, in its corrupt rush to further its reputation as the cheapest place on Earth to produce mass-market clothing, so much so that even China recognizes the profit-effectiveness of sub-contracting out to Bangladesh whose factory-worker wages are lower even than China's own.

The building was a massive complex within which an assortment of factories operated on its various floors, with shops and a bank co-located below. It was said that over 3,200 people worked there. None of them would have known that the top three floors of the building had been erected without permit, illegally and with substandard engineering and materials. Had they known, it would have meant little to them.

They depended upon the pittance they earned -- the average wage in the garment-producing industry in Bangladesh is said to be $40 a month -- to feed their families. And that, precisely, is the problem. The international community can shrink in disgust and dismay that their shopping habits helped produce this calamity. And that is true. But withdraw custom from the factories that employ the impoverished workers and they have nothing.

Rana Plaza had been built in 2010  by Mohammed Rana on land he owned that was once a swamp. He amassed his wealth through his political connections, built on a number of government-owned properties that he bought at reduced prices. He obtained a municipal building permit for a five-story building, and then simply added on another three floors. When those warning cracks appeared, he along with factory managers ordered fearful workers to enter the building and resume work as usual.

"I was too afraid to go inside the building. But the factory officials assured us they would also be in the factory, so there should not be any problem", explained a surviving factory worker. The factory owners were in the business of manufacturing items for export at prices that would guarantee them a profit. Wages for workers are set at a level that is hardly reflective of subsistence, but is evidently higher than wages earned elsewhere in the country's economy.

Because of a human rights campaign undertaken by the West in the 1990s against the use of child labour, Bangladeshi factories laid off 30,000 child workers. Later follow-up by Oxfam determined that the children who were released did not return to school, did not manage to live better lives; they took worse jobs or ended up begging in the streets and sometimes turning to prostitution to survive.

The country has a per-capita GDP income of $2,000, one of the lowest in the world. If irate consumer groups agitate against buying products from Bangladesh is it those workers who will suffer. Without even the meager wages that they earn, they and they families will have no income whatever. It is, of course, the government and its bureaucracies that are at fault, corrupt and uncaring.

Which is where the pressure of international public opinion should focus.

Dhaka building collapse: Hopes for rescue fade 

BBC News online - 29 April 2013

The BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan in Dhaka: "Rescue teams went inside last night and there was a fire... they had to pull out and they could not save a young woman"

Rescue work on a collapsed building in Bangladesh has entered a sixth day, but officials say they no longer expect to find any survivors. 

Heavy lifting gear is now being used to raise slabs of concrete at the Rana Plaza garment factory, where at least 380 died after Wednesday's collapse.

PM Sheikh Hasina visited the site and some of the victims on Monday.
The owner of the building appeared in court on Monday and was remanded in police custody for 15 days.

Mohammed Sohel Rana - who is one of eight people, including his father, arrested in connection with the disaster - entered court wearing a bullet-proof vest and helmet, and faced angry crowds chanting "hang him, hang him".

An editorial in the Daily Star says Bangladeshi garment manufacturers "have convoluted the idea of 'competitive' and 'cheap'," and workers are "bearing the brunt of this".

Also in the Daily Star, Hameeda Hossain writes: "Even as we mourn the dead... it is time to question why the state has repeatedly ignored violation of laws, why regulatory mechanisms fail to monitor systemic failures, why political patronage confers impunity for corporate crimes."

Muhammad Q Islam writes for bdnews24: "We still have a 47 million strong army of very poor people who will be willing to take all the risks that culminate in injury and death... Our economic policies explicitly rely on continued availability of this work force to fuel our economic growth."

Fariha Sarawat says in the Dhaka Tribune that while buyers should take some moral responsibility for such disasters "the state aids and abates this hostile environment by repeatedly siding with the interests of the manufacturers, instead of the workers."

He is due to be questioned over allegations of negligence, illegal construction and persuading workers to enter a dangerous building.

At least 3,000 are estimated to have been in the Rana Plaza building when it collapsed. About 2,430 are now known to have survived but hundreds are dead or missing.

Some relatives of those missing complained that the prime minister had not spoken to them during her visit to the site.

"We could have talked to her, and she also could have listened to us," said Monowara Begum, the mother of one missing worker.

Sheikh Hasina also visited some of the survivors in hospital. Bangladesh news site BDNews24 said she had assured them they would receive help from the government.
Bangladesh, it has emerged, refused international help with the disaster.

The UN's search and rescue unit, INSARAG, offered its help soon after the building collapsed but was told Bangladesh would manage the situation with its own well-equipped emergency services, reports the BBC's Mark Doyle.

Analysis

Mark Doyle BBC International Development Correspondent

It's unusual for countries to decline help when disaster strikes - whether they are rich or poor.
Hundreds of rescuers converged on Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, for example. They performed similar work to that needed in Bangladesh.
Japan, a far richer country, also accepted lots of help following its earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Bangladesh's Home Minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir said no help was needed because the local emergency services were well equipped.
This would appear to have been contradicted by the sometimes poorly-equipped volunteers scrabbling through the rubble and the apparent starting of a fire by people trying to cut their way through the building.
A senior diplomat with the United Nations' International Search and Rescue Advisory Group said an offer of help was made to Bangladesh very early on "because the lifesaving window of opportunity is in the first few days".
But, according to the diplomat, the Bangladesh government said it would manage the situation through domestic means.

On Sunday night, rescuers working deep inside the rubble were told to leave, as cranes were brought in to begin lifting the heavy blocks of fallen concrete.

"We are proceeding cautiously. If there is still a soul alive, we will try to rescue that person,'' army spokesman Shahinul Islam told reporters.

"We are giving the highest priority to saving people, but there is little hope of finding anyone alive."
Fire brigade chief Brig Gen Ali Ahmed Khan said crews had seen bodies lying on the ground inside, but that "no-one was seen alive".

Rescue co-ordinators said that work with heavy-lifting gear would be done carefully to avoid further collapses and to protect bodies trapped under the debris as much as possible.

On Sunday afternoon, the operation was halted when a fire broke out as sparks from a metal-cutter ignited scraps of fabric in the rubble.
Four firefighters were taken to hospital.

The BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan says rescuers had been trying to free a trapped woman for a number of hours when the fire began, but they later reported she had not survived the fire.

Mohammed Sohel Rana went on the run following the collapse of his eight-storey building, but was arrested on Sunday close to the Indian border.

Bangladeshi TV later showed Mr Rana - a local leader of the youth wing of the prime minister's Awami League party - in handcuffs after being flown back to Dhaka by helicopter.

Bangladesh's economy

• A total population of some 150.4m, 88% under the age of 55.
• GDP in 2012 was around $110bn - the ready-made garment (RMG) industry makes up 80% of all exports, totalling more than $15bn in 2012-13 financial year.
• About four million people are directly employed in the RMG industry, most of them women, earning an average monthly salary of roughly $40.

Anger at the building's collapse has triggered days of violent protests in Dhaka demanding those responsible be punished and for an improvement in factory conditions.

Garment industry workers across the country were given the weekend off, in the hope that the anger would fade.

But on Monday, thousands of workers walked out of factories in the Ashulia and Gazipur industrial districts shortly after they opened, and staged a protest march, reportedly setting fire to an ambulance.
Bangladesh has one of the largest garment industries in the world, providing cheap clothing for major Western retailers that benefit from its widespread low-cost labour.

But the industry has been widely criticised for its low pay and limited rights given to workers and for the often dangerous working conditions in garment factories.

Dhaka building collapse: Fire breaks out in wreckage

BBC News online -- 28 April 2013

A rescuer injured in the fire is taken from the scene

A fire has broken out in a collapsed factory building in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, hampering efforts to reach remaining survivors of a disaster that has killed at least 377 people.

The fire was started by sparks from cutters being used in a failed attempt to free a female survivor. Four fire-fighters have been taken to hospital.

The owner of the Rana Plaza factory, Mohammed Sohel Rana, was earlier arrested near the Indian border.
He has been flown back to Dhaka.

Mr Rana was said to have been in hiding since the building collapsed on Wednesday.

Smoke was seen pouring from a section of the third floor of the building, stopping rescue work in that area, although efforts continued in other parts.

The eight-storey building in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, was a garment factory and the presence of clothing may have worsened the blaze, correspondents say.

The BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan, at the scene, says the fire has now been brought under control.
He says rescuers had been trying to free the trapped woman for a number of hours but they later reported she had not survived.

Cutters and heavy lifting equipment had been brought in after officials determined that light equipment could no longer do the job.

Factory owner Mohammed Sohel Rana was arrested near the Indian border

 

Earlier on Sunday, two people were pulled out alive but hopes are fading that many more survivors will be found.

Thousands of relatives of missing workers are still waiting at the site as survivors and the dead are pulled from the rubble.

At least 3,000 are estimated to have been in the building when it collapsed. About 2,430 are now known to have survived.

There is no official figure on the number of people still missing, but Akram Hossain, a deputy director of the fire service, said their chances of survival were "diminishing by the minute".

Earlier, local government minister Jahangir Kabir Nanak announced the arrest of Mohammed Sohel Rana by loudspeaker at the site of the collapse, to cheers from rescue workers.

The factory owner was detained near the land-crossing in Benapole along the border with India's West Bengal state by Rapid Action Battalion soldiers.

Bangladeshi TV later showed Mr Rana in handcuffs after being flown back to Dhaka by helicopter.
The building housed several garment factories.

Six people, including three factory owners and two engineers, have now been arrested.
Anger at the building collapse has triggered days of violent protests in Dhaka.

On Sunday, garment workers blockaded a main road in a nearby industrial zone of Gazipur demanding capital punishment for those responsible.

Bangladesh has one of the largest garment industries in the world, providing cheap clothing for major Western retailers that benefit from its widespread low-cost labour.

But the industry has been widely criticised for its low pay and limited rights given to workers and for the often dangerous working conditions in garment factories.

Dhaka building collapse: Factory owners arrested

BBC News online - 27 April 2013

The BBC's Andrew North in Dhaka: "This is really now a race against time"

Two owners of garment factories in the building that collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka have been arrested. 

Mahbubur Rahman Tapas and Balzul Samad Adnan are suspected of forcing staff to work in the eight-storey building, ignoring warnings about cracks.

At least 336 people are known to have died after the Rana Plaza in the suburb of Savar collapsed on Wednesday.

On Saturday morning, at least 24 more people were rescued from the rubble.
Rescuers and volunteers, who worked through the night, cheered as they were brought to safety.

At the scene Andrew North South Asia correspondent

I have just seen a woman pulled alive from deep inside the rubble of the Rana Plaza, four days since this huge garment factory complex collapsed.
She was crying as she emerged into the light on what was once the roof of the building. Rescuers shouted Allahu Akbar (God is great) as she was brought up on a rope and then carried away on a stretcher.
Emergency personnel say up to 14 more people are still trapped on what was the fifth floor of the building and work is under way to free them.
Hundreds of volunteers are still helping army and emergency services. Bodies are also still being retrieved from this massive tangle of concrete and metal.
There have been more clashes with police and protesters near the site as anger simmers over the disaster.
We passed dozens of riot police on the drive here, some were guarding other nearby garment factories following attacks on several others.

Earlier, rescue teams said they had located about 40 survivors on the collapsed third and fifth floors of the building.

Officials said they were working to extricate the remaining survivors and had passed oxygen cylinders and water to those still trapped.

Among those pulled out alive after three days in the rubble was Marina Begum, 22, now recovering in hospital.
"It felt like I was in hell," she said.
"It was so hot, I could hardly breathe, there was no food or water. When I regained my senses I found myself in this hospital bed."

More bodies of victims were also retrieved overnight and on Saturday morning.
Some 3,000 people are believed to have been working in the building at the time of the collapse and about 600 are still missing. Rana Plaza housed three garment factories, a bank and a number of shops.
Watching the operation are hundreds of relatives of those still missing, many clutching photographs of their loved ones.

Abul Basar wept as he awaited news of his wife who worked in one of the garment factories.
"My son says that his mother will come back some day, she must return," he cried.

Mr Tapas and Mr Adnan, the owners of the New Wave Bottoms and New Wave Style factories, were remanded in custody for 12 days by a court on Saturday. They were arrested earlier in the day after turning themselves in.

Deputy chief of Dhaka police Shyami Mukherjee said the two were accused of causing "death due to negligence".

The owners reportedly told their employees to return to work on Wednesday, even though cracks were visible in the building a day earlier.
Three other clothing factories were reportedly operating in the building.

Police are also questioning two municipal engineers who are reported to have approved the safety of the building a day before it collapsed.

The owner of Rana Plaza, Mohammed Sohel Rana, is said to have gone into hiding.
"Those who're involved, especially the owner who forced the workers to work there, will be punished," Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told lawmakers on Friday.

"Wherever he is, he will be found and brought to justice," the prime minister added.
There is widespread anger in Bangladesh over the disaster and fresh clashes between police and protesters erupted again on Saturday.

Rescuers say many people are still trapped. Picture: Andrew North

 

On Friday, police used tear-gas and rubber bullets to break up crowds that had blocked roads, set fire to buses and attacked textile factories.

Protesters are demanding that the government arrests all those responsible for the disaster and improves conditions for garment workers.
Police are guarding other garment factories in the area.

Bangladesh has one of the largest garment industries in the world, providing cheap clothing for major Western retailers that benefit from its widespread low-cost labour.

But the industry has been widely criticised for its low pay and limited rights given to workers and for the often dangerous working conditions in garment factories.

Primark, a clothes retailer with a large presence in Britain, confirmed that one of its suppliers was on the second floor of the Rana Plaza, and said it would work with other retailers to review standards.
Labour rights groups say the companies have a moral duty to ensure their suppliers are providing safe conditions for their employees.

UK fashion designer Katharine Hamnett has called on fashion brands to insist on safer working conditions for garment workers internationally.

"The price of clothes may be low but they are paid for with human lives," she is reported to have said at the Vogue Festival in London on Saturday.

"We should demand credible, certifiable inspections on building structures and industry standards."
She added: "This is a very dark day for the clothing industry."

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Communist Party and left-leaning Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal party have called a general strike on 2 May to demand punishment for those found responsible for the deaths.