Death toll in Bangladesh collapse passes 300

SAVAR, Bangladesh - With time running out to save workers still trapped in a collapsed garment factory building, rescuers dug through mangled metal and concrete Friday and found more survivors - but also more corpses that pushed the death toll past 300.

Wailing, angry relatives fought with police who held them back from the wrecked, eight-story Rana Plaza building, as search-and-rescue operations went on more than two days after the structure crumbled.

Rescue workers carry a garment worker alive from the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, in Savar, 30 km outside Dhaka April 26, 2013. [Photo/Agencies]

Amid the cries for help and the smell of decaying bodies, the rescue of 18-year-old Mussamat Anna came at a high cost: Emergency crews cut off the garment worker's mangled right hand to pull her free from the debris Thursday night.

"First a machine fell over my hand, and I was crushed under the debris. ... Then the roof collapsed over me," she told an Associated Press cameraman from a hospital bed Friday.

More than 40 survivors were found late Friday evening on some floors of the Rana Plaza, said fire service inspector Shafiqul Islam, who searched the building. Through holes in the structure, he gave them water and juice packs to combat dehydration in the stifling heat and humidity.

"They are alive, they are trapped, but most of them are safe. We need to cut through debris and walls to bring them out," Islam said.

By Friday night, more than 80 survivors had been rescued, according to officials at a command center.

But more dead were also discovered. Shamim Islam, a volunteer who entered the collapsed building along with rescue workers, said he saw "many bodies inside".

"I threw some water bottles through a hole, as there were some survivors, too," he said.

The search will continue into Saturday, officials said, with crews cautiously using hammers, shovels and their bare hands. Many of the trapped workers were so badly hurt and weakened that they needed to be removed within a few hours, the rescuers said.

There were fears that even if unhurt, the survivors could be dehydrated, with daytime temperatures soaring to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and about 24 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight.

Hundreds of rescuers crawled through the rubble amid the cries of the trapped and the wails of workers' relatives gathered outside the building, which housed numerous garment factories and a handful of other companies.

Brig. Gen. Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder, who is overseeing rescue operations, said before the evening rescues that 2,200 people have been pulled out alive. A garment manufacturers' group said the factories in the building employed 3,122 workers, but it was not clear how many were inside it when it collapsed Wednesday in Savar, a suburb of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka.

Military spokesman Shahin Islam told reporters that 304 bodies had been recovered so far.