Reshma describes her 17-day ordeal
She had worked in Rana Plaza for only 22 days before the building came crashing down on her. With just a packet of biscuits and some water Reshma made it out of the rubble alive on Friday, after being trapped in the debris for 17 days.
In her first formal appearance before the media, the girl yesterday said, “I don’t know how I got the courage to go through all these.”
Three days after her miraculous rescue, she was finally deemed mentally and physically stable to address journalists. She was, however, hesitant and emotional in the beginning as she tried to recall her traumatic experience.
She could not recall which garment factory she worked in, but said it was on the second floor.
“I went to the office in the morning. I saw people discussing and pointing to the cracks in the wall. But the ‘sirs’ said the cracks were caused by water and it was nothing serious,” she told reporters at the Savar CMH.
Just when she began work she heard people screaming. “We were asked to leave the building slowly. As I was trying to leave, a co-worker told me, ‘Reshma, go slowly, we will get out together.’ I went toward her and held her hand, when something fell on my head. I fell down on the floor.”
After some time, she regained her senses and realised people around her were yelling and crying, urging her to give them some water.
“It was so dark that I couldn’t see or find anything; I couldn’t give them any water.
“Then I saw a man beside me, who said, ‘Apu, save me.’ I told him: how can I save you when I can’t save myself? He screamed and screamed until he died,” she added.
After his death, Reshma tried to find a way out. Crawling in the darkness, she moved from one place to another, without finding any escape route.
“During my search, I found a packet of biscuits and some water. But there was nothing else. I kept on moving around. I would sleep, and then look for a way out.”
Finally, she saw a pile of bricks, and hoped she would find a passage if she could remove them. She removed some bricks with her hands and then made a bigger hole with a stick, which she had found in the debris. She then climbed through the hole and found herself in the market area (on the first floor).
Asked how she was wearing clean clothes, Reshma said her clothes had been soiled and torn from moving through the rubble. She found a new set of clothes where she was trapped and changed into it before she was rescued.
“I saw a ray of light and I started screaming, ‘Brother, help me.’ They heard me. But then I thought: how can I get out in this condition? I am a woman, after all, not a man,” she said.
She added a rescuer handed her a torch light. With the help of the light, she found some clothes and changed.
She said she joined the factory on April 2 for Tk 4,700 a month.
Brig Gen Ashfaquzzaman Chowdhury, adviser psychiatrist to the Bangladesh Army, said Reshma was not in a good mental state when rescued.
“She was afraid and hesitant and was not speaking properly,” he said.
However, treatment and support over the last three days had made her more comfortable in talking about her experiences, he said, urging journalists not to ask questions that might traumatise her further.
Source: The Daily Star
