DHAKA — A seamstress buried for 17 days in the wreckage of a collapsed garment factory building was rescued Friday, a miraculous moment set against the unimaginable horror of the more than 1,000 bodies recovered so far. Reshma was in such good shape she was able to walk, according to one rescuer. She said she survived on dried food and bottled water. She was discovered near a prayer room in the basement of the eight-story Rana Plaza building, where crews have been focused on recovering bodies, not rescuing survivors, since late April. "I heard voices of the rescue workers for the past several days. I kept hitting the wreckage with sticks and rods just to attract their attention," she told the private Somoy TV from her hospital bed as doctors and nurses milled about, giving her saline and checking her condition. "No one heard me. It was so bad for me. I never dreamed I'd see the daylight again," she said. "There was some dried food around me. I ate the dried food for 15 days. The last two days I had nothing but water. I used to drink only a limited quantity of water to save it. I had some bottles of water around me," she said. She finally got the crews' attention when she took a steel pipe and began banging it, said Abdur Razzak, a warrant officer with the military's engineering department who first spotted her in the wreckage. The workers ran into the dark rubble, eventually getting flashlights, to free her, the official said. When Reshma was freed after 40 minutes, the crowd erupted in wild cheers. Soldiers and men in hard hats carried Reshma, wearing a pink outfit with a violet scarf, on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance, which brought her to a military hospital. But her rescuers said she was in shockingly good condition, despite her ordeal. Razzak said she could even walk. "She was fine, no injuries. She was just trapped. The space was wide," said Lt. Col. Moyeen, an army official at the scene. Doctors at the hospital said Reshma was out of danger and her kidney and liver function were fine. Reshma told Somoy TV she was working in a factory on the second floor when the building began collapsing around her. She raced down a stairwell into the basement, where she became trapped by the wreckage. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, called Reshma in the hospital, and the rescued woman began crying on the phone. She told Hasina: "I am fine, please pray for me," Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, head of the local military units, said. "This is an unbelievable feat," Hasina was quoted as saying by her assistant, Mahbubul Haque Shakil. The death toll from the disaster soared past 1,000 Friday, with officials confirming that 1,038 bodies had been recovered from the rubble of the fallen building, which had housed five garment factories employing thousands of workers. — AP
