Last survivor rescued from rubble gives CNN one of her first one-on-one interviews
Reshma describes 17 harrowing days buried underground in pitch-black darkness
She remembers being sent back to work the day the building fell, after spotting cracks
Her mother traveled 170 miles to find Reshma's remains; now "my heart is bursting with joy"
(CNN) —
“Save me!” a man’s voice cries out in the darkness. “Please save me!”
“I can’t see you,” she replies. “I don’t know where you are.”
“Save me! Please save me!” the voice pleads again.
“I want to,” she says. “But I can’t move either.”
She loses consciousness.
When she wakes, the voice is gone.
In that cramped, dark grave under 700 tons of concrete and steel, she is all alone.
****
The concept of purgatory isn’t familiar to most Bangladeshis.
But the way Reshma describes her 17 harrowing days – buried underground in pitch-black darkness as the voices around her faded away, as sweltering days bled into humid nights, as she questioned whether she was in this world or the next – it’s an apt one.
Photos: Photos: Building collapses in Bangladesh
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Members of the Bangladesh army pray at the site of the collapsed Rana Plaza in Savar near Dhaka on Tuesday, May 14. The army-led effort to search for bodies has ended nearly three weeks after the nine-story building collapsed. The final death toll stands at 1,127.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Relatives of missing garment workers offer prayers in front of the rubble on May 14 in Savar.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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A white board at the recovery command center near the disaster is used to track the death toll on Monday, May 13.
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Saeed Ahmed/CNN
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Heavy equipment sifts through the rubble of the garment factory building collapse on Sunday, May 12.
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AFP/Getty Images
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A woman cries holds a portrait of a missing relative believed to be trapped in the rubble of the Rana Plaza building on Saturday, May 11.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Bangladeshi garment worker Reshma Begum, a seamstress who survived 16 days trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building, rests in Savar Cantonment Hospital on the outskirts of Dhaka on May 11.
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STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images
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Relatives search through a long line of covered decomposing bodies to try to identify their family members on May 11.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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Rescue workers retrieve Reshma from the rubble in Savar, Bangladesh, on Friday, May 10. She got rescue workers' attention by waving an iron rod. She was found in a pool of water, which allowed her to stay alive.
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STRinger/AFP/Getty Images
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An injured worker who survived the building collapse is carried by her husband to collect her wages in Savar near Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Wednesday, May 8.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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Garment workers who survived the building collapse line up to collect their salaries in Savar on May 8.
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EPA/ABIR ABDULLAH /LANDOV
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Workers continue rescue and recovery operations on Tuesday, May 7, nearly two weeks after the Rana Plaza building's collapse outside Dhaka.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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Rescue workers recover a body from the rubble on May 7.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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Relatives place a body in the back of a truck on May 7.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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A woman attempts to identify one of the bodies kept in a schoolyard on May 7.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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Members of the Bangladeshi army and firefighters carry the body of a garment worker from the scene of the building collapse in Savar, outside Dhaka, on Sunday, May 5.
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STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images
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A woman holds a portrait of her missing relative as she sleeps on Saturday, May 4.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Relatives attempt to identify the bodies of loved ones on May 4.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Rescue workers dig out debris from the Rana Plaza building as Bangladeshi army personnel continue the second phase of a rescue operation using heavy equipment on Friday, May 3.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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A woman reacts on May 3 after identifying a body found in the rubble.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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A man stands amid the destruction as rescue and army personnel continue recovery operations on May 3.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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A woman holds up a picture of a missing person believed to be trapped in the rubble on May 3.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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A garment worker rescued from the wreckage of the Rana Plaza building lies in a hospital in Dhaka on Thursday, May 2.
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STRinger/AFP/Getty Images
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A woman weeps after identifying her daughter's body in the rubble in Savar on May 2.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Rescue workers move debris as Bangladeshi army personnel continue the second phase of a rescue operation at the site of the collapsed building in Savar on May 2.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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A woman mourns before a mass burial in Dhaka on Wednesday, May 1.
PHOTO:
ANDREW BIRAJ/reuters/LANDOV
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Unidentified bodies from the rubble lie on the ground as people gather for a mass burial in Dhaka on May 1.
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ANDREW BIRAJ/reuters/LANDOV
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Workers dig graves during a mass burial of unidentified garment workers on May 1.
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STRINGER/reuters/LANDOV
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Sohel Rana, owner of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, wears police-issued body armor and a helmet while being escorted to court in Dhaka on Tuesday, April 30. Rana was arrested near the Indian border, and protesters called for him to be hanged.
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STRinger/AFP/Getty Images
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Bangladeshi troops carry the body of a garment worker out of the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building in Savar on April 30.
PHOTO:
MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Clothing with Joe Fresh labels lies in the debris on April 30.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Cranes operated by Bangladeshi army personnel work on Monday, April 29.
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Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)
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Firefighters try to control a blaze that started while they were trying to rescue a woman with heavy equipment on April 29.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Bangladeshi army personnel begin the second phase of the rescue operation using heavy equipment on April 29.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Rescuers look for survivors on Sunday, April 28. The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society says the chances of finding anyone alive in the rubble at this date are remote.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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A woman mourns on April 28 at the site of the building collapse in Savar.
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Shariful Islam/XINHUA/LANDOV
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Rescue workers search for survivors on April 28.
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ANDREW BIRAJ/reuters/LANDOV
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Volunteers sleep before they begin more rescue operations on April 28.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Rescue workers carry a victim's body recovered from the rubble on April 28.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Clothes lie in the rubble on Saturday, April 27.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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An arrested owner of a garment factory is escorted to an appearance at the court in Dhaka on April 27. Four people were arrested and four others are being questioned by police.
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STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images
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Relatives hold photos of missing and dead workers outside the factory April 27.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Two Bangladeshi women look at a board with notices posted of missing and dead workers on April 27.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Bangladeshi relatives and workers load a body onto a truck on April 27.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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An excavator operated by the Bangladeshi Army removes debris on April 26.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Volunteers and rescue workers conduct rescue operations on April 26.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Rescue workers use textile as a slide to move bodies out of the rubble on April 26.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Rescue workers look for trapped garment workers on April 26.
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ANDREW BIRAJ/reuters/LANDOV
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Rescue workers stand on the rubble of the collapsed building on April 26.
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ANDREW BIRAJ/reuters/LANDOV
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Rescue workers search the rubble for victims and survivors on April 26.
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ANDREW BIRAJ/reuters/LANDOV
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A rescue worker looks for trapped workers on April 26.
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ANDREW BIRAJ/reuters/LANDOv
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Bangladeshi army personnel recover a survivor from rubble on April 26, 48 hours after the collapse.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Volunteers and rescue workers assist in rescue operations on April 26.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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A physician assists a survivor after he was recovered from the rubble on April 26.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Two bodies clutch each other in the rubble on Thursday, April 25.
PHOTO:
Courtesy Taslima Akhtfer
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People rescue garment workers on April 25.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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A Bangladeshi woman shows a picture of her missing daughter-in-law she believes is trapped in the collapsed building on April 25.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Bangladeshi firefighters cut a hole through concrete during rescue operations on April 25 in Savar, a suburb of Dhaka.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Volunteers and rescue workers work at the scene on April 25.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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A woman appears devastated on April 25 after identifying the body of her husband killed in the building collapse.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Bangladeshi garment workers help evacuate a survivor by using a roll of fabric on April 24.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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People rescue garment workers on Wednesday, April 24, after the building caved in, leaving a chaotic mass of broken concrete and twisted metal.
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ANDREW BIRAJ/Reuters/LANDOV
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Relatives who lost a brother mourn outside a hospital on April 24.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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Rescuers help an injured garment worker to escape from the Rana Plaza building on the outskirts of Dhaka on April 24.
PHOTO:
Farid Ahmed/CNN
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Civilians help an injured garment worker on April 24. Work was proceeding slowly to avoid causing further collapse, an official said.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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Rescue workers search for trapped garment workers in the Rana Plaza building on April 24.
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ANDREW BIRAJ/Reuters/LANDOV
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An injured Bangladeshi lies on the hospital floor on April 24.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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The injured receive treatment at a hospital on April 24.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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An injured person rests in a hospital bed on April 24.
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MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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People wait anxiously on April 24 while rescuers search for survivors.
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Farid Ahmed/CNN
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Rescuers help an injured person out of the seventh floor on April 24.
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Farid Ahmed/CNN
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Civilians help out in rescue efforts at the collapsed building on April 24.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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Hundreds watch the rescue operations on April 24.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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People search for garment workers trapped under the debris on April 24.
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ANDREW BIRAJ/Reuters/LANDOV
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Rescuers help an injured worker on April 24.
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Farid Ahmed/CNN
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A body is trapped under the damaged building on April 24.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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A woman is carried away from the building on April 24.
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ABIR ABDULLAH/EPA/LANDOV
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A rescue worker carries a worker to an ambulance on April 24.
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ANDREW BIRAJ/Reuters/LANDOV
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Crowds gather around the collapsed building on April 24.
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ANDREW BIRAJ/Reuters/LANDOV
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Rescuers bring out an injured garment worker from the building's sixth floor.
Savar, once an undeveloped agricultural patch of land just outside Dhaka, has grown into a chaotic, potholed boomtown, home to a disproportionate number of the country’s 4,500 garment factories.
And Reshma quickly found a job at Rana Plaza, a gargantuan, nine-story, city-block-sized structure that housed shops, a bank and five garment workshops.
The $60 she earned a month was twice the average for garment workers in Bangladesh.
Still, the loss of her husband’s additional earnings meant she barely squeaked by.
***
“I have to find a way to chop this off,” Reshma thinks.
Her long dark hair is caught under a slab of concrete. Every time she tries to move, large chunks of hair are pulled out of her head.
She feels around in the darkness to see what she can find.
A pair of scissors.
She grabs a handful of hair.
Snip.
She is now free to explore on her hands and knees this dust-choked cocoon.
***
When the first cracks appeared in the exterior walls of Rana Plaza, the news spread among the workers in quick murmurs.
The building was built without the right permits on land that used to be a pond, officials now say. The weak foundation was threatened even further when the owner added four floors to what was once a five-story structure.
Generators hummed on the fourth floor, sometimes so loudly that workers said they could feel the structure vibrate.
But all this was revealed after the fact. After Rana Plaza pancaked on April 24. After it claimed more than 1,100 lives.
On April 23, the owner, Sohel Rana, called in an engineer to inspect the building and appease worker concerns.
The engineer, officials later said, took one look at support pillars on the third floor and was horrified. The fissures were deep – and many.
The building is unsound, he said. No one should be inside.
Rana dismissed those concerns.
“This building will stand a hundred years,” he boasted that day.
The factory owners were relieved. Political unrest in the country has meant frequent general strikes and a backlog of orders for them. They couldn’t afford a work stoppage if they intended to keep their foreign clients happy.
The industry generates more than $20 billion a year, making the country the second largest exporter of clothing after China.
So they gave the workers an ultimatum: Miss work, miss pay.
The next morning at work, Reshma and others checked out the cracks. They looked ominous.
“The managers said, ‘That’s just water damage. Go back to work,’ ” she said.
She did, taking her spot among the long rows of sewing machines at New Wave Bottoms.
An hour later, the power failed. Then came a loud rumble.
Pillars crashed. Support beams punched through windows. Dust and debris clogged the air.
The ceiling raced toward Reshma. And the floors gave way.
“I fell. And I fell,” Reshma said.
Then she blacked out.
***
Reshma crawls across the rubble with the little strength she can muster.
“Water,” she tells herself. “I have to find water.”
She’d found a little in a bottle soon after the fall.
But how long ago was that?
Hours? Days? Weeks? In this darkness, she can’t tell.
The anguished cries around her stopped a long time ago.
The man who’d begged her for help was the last voice.
Darkness. Silence. Desperation.
She drags through the detritus, her clothing ripping to shreds.
She pokes bricks with a rod. One tiny space leads to another. Each an air pocket within the sandwiched structure.
She scavenges for food. The four crackers she’d found in the ruins and rationed carefully are gone.
What she really needs is water.
She eventually finds it.
With cupped palms, she pours it down her parched throat.
“I didn’t know if it was rainwater or dirty water or what type of water,” she later says. “It didn’t matter.”
She doesn’t know it, but she’s in the flooded basement of Rana Plaza.
***
It’s 170 miles from Dinajpur to Dhaka, a trek along congested roads that can take up to 10 hours.
Reshma’s mother heard of the collapse on TV. But there was no way for her to reach her daughter.
Reshma had sold her mobile phone three days earlier to help pay rent.
Scrounging up what little change she had lying around, Zubeida boarded a bus to the capital.
She checked the morgue and the hospitals.
She showed a picture of Reshma to every rescuer she met. No one had seen her.
For the first few days, she steadfastly held on to hope. Rescuers had been pulling out survivors from the rubble by the dozens each day. More than 2,000 of them in all.
But as the days passed, the number dwindled. And with it died Zubeida’s hopes.
She wandered aimlessly around the disaster site.
Strangers brought her rice, offered her an umbrella, consoled her.
“I wanted my daughter’s body,” she said. “I wanted a leg or an arm or anything that I could take home and bury.”
Three minutes without air. Three days without water. Three weeks without food.
That’s the survival rule of thumb.
In Reshma’s case, circumstances conspired to keep her alive:
The air that seeped into the crevices. The crackers she found. The water she drank.
The complete darkness may have helped too, doctors say.
Without knowing day from night, she couldn’t keep track of time. She didn’t know officials had determined there was little chance someone could survive past a week under that mountainous pile. She was unaware that the rescue mission had long given way to an operation to recover the dead.
And sometimes, the not knowing keeps one going.
***
“Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar.”
What was that? Reshma wonders. She strains to hear.
“Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar.”
There it is again, the mellifluous tones of the Muslim call to prayer.
And then … voices.
She hears voices. Many voices.
“Where’s the sound coming from? Where’s the sound coming from?” she keeps asking herself.
With a new urgency, she bangs on the walls of mangled metal and cement around her.
Then she sees a sliver of light.
“Bachao! Bachao!” she calls out. Save me! Save me!
But no one hears her.
She takes another rod. With all her might, she jams it through an opening above her.
“Allah,” she keeps saying. “Allah, save me.”
***
It wasn’t lost on Lt. Col. Moazzem Hossain that the mood at the disaster site was changing.
Determination was slowly giving way to dejection.
The pungent stench of death permeated the air.
Rescue workers covered their faces with T-shirts to escape the smell of decaying flesh.
It seeped into their clothes, crawled inside their skin and lungs.
Each body they pulled out took an emotional toll as well.
The number of volunteers had thinned.
By Friday, rescuers had finished scouring the rubble and were drilling their way to the building’s basement.
The recovery operation was almost over. They hadn’t found a survivor in almost a week.
Then, someone noticed a rod jutting out from an opening, waving wildly.
They heard a woman’s frail pleas: “Bachao, bachao.”
Slackjawed with disbelief, elated with wonder, they rushed to the spot.
Someone was down there, alive!
“She kept saying, ‘Save me, save me,’ ” Hossain said. “We told her we weren’t going anywhere.”
A roar went through the crowds that had gathered at the sight. Television channels immediately switched to live coverage.
“Almighty God, you make anything possible,” said a man on a loudspeaker as he urged others to pray. “Please help us save her.”
For 45 minutes, workers used hand drills and light hammers to remove concrete blocks.
They repeated their assurance:
“Wait, wait, we’re coming for you.”
****
Minutes from rescue, Reshma finds herself facing a very ordinary dilemma.
“How am I going to come out in front of all these people with no clothes?” she thinks. “I’m a lady.”Hers had ripped to shreds from all the crawling.
A rescuer tosses her a flashlight, and she looks around.
Piles of clothes are everywhere, spilling out of crushed boxes.
She picks a purple shalwar kameez and wraps a bright pink scarf around her neck and chest.
Her face is covered with dirt, but she looks fine, she thinks.
Then she waits to emerge from the Earth.
***
Lt. Col. Sharif Ahmed is the commanding officer of the Combined Military Hospital in Savar where Reshma is recovering. He marvels at how rapid her readjustment has been.
Reshma, whose age is listed in hospital papers as “22 ( +/- 2),” is gaining strength every day.
“When she came here, she’d startle to the touch,” he said. “She’d have flashbacks if she tried to sleep.
“All normal, considering what she went through.”
Now she’s smiling, sitting up. And she’s inseparable from her mother. The two hadn’t always gotten along.
“My heart is bursting with joy,” Zubeida said. “I begged God, and he returned her.”
Sohel Rana is in jail, nabbed by police as he tried to flee to India. The owners of the factories in Rana Plaza are also in detention.
On Tuesday, after 21 days, the rescue and recovery efforts formally ended.
The disaster has spurred the government and foreign retailers to take a long, hard, critical look at factory safety standards and their roles in policing it.
As for Reshma, she doesn’t know what her future holds.
But she knows she’s not going back to the garment business.
She ended our interview with a simple request: “Everybody please pray for me.”
With the joy she brought to a nation in mourning, many already are.