A Bangladesh Factory Inspector's Grueling Day in the Life

In the wake of the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory building, which killed more than 1,000 workers, Bangladesh is trying to assess the state of its garment factories. A day spent with Mohammed Helal Ahmed, a civil engineer in the Dhaka city government, shows how arduous that job is.

The garment industry survey by Ahmed and his 50 colleagues at the Dhaka Development Authority has been hobbled by shortages of cars, engineers, money, and information. The development authority didn’t know exactly how many factories there were. After two weeks it has surveyed about 300 of more than 3,500 factories in the capital of 18 million people. Close to 90 percent of the factories visited triggered serious concerns and warranted immediate repairs or demolitions, says Emdadul Islam, chief engineer at the authority.