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Ceiling Collapse at Shoe Factory in Cambodia Kills 2
Ceiling Collapse at Shoe Factory in Cambodia Kills 2
(about 5 hours later)
HONG KONG — A ceiling at a small factory making shoes on the outskirts of the capital of Cambodia collapsed on Thursday morning, killing at least two workers and underlining global worries about factory safety in poor countries.
TREAM TBAL, Cambodia — A raised storage area collapsed Thursday morning at a footwear factory in this Cambodian village, killing at least two workers and underlining global worries about factory safety in poor countries.
Ken Loo, the secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, said that steel beams holding up a concrete-floored storage area at mezzanine height between two buildings had given way. In addition to the two dead, nine workers were injured, three of them severely, by falling concrete, Mr. Loo said.
Workers employed by the factory, which is about an hour’s drive outside the captial, Phnom Penh, described a scene of panic.
The collapse outside the capital, Phnom Penh, came 22 days after the collapse of a garment factory complex in Bangladesh killed at least 1,127 people and prompted an international outcry for multinational retailers to assume more responsibility for the safety of workers at their suppliers.
“People were screaming, ‘Get out! Get out!’ ” said Thinna Makara, a 40-year-old woman who sews the fabrics for sneakers in the factory.
Mr. Loo said that the factory had been making shoes for Asics, a large Japanese athletic shoe company that is based in Kobe. Naomichi Hatori, a spokesman for Asics, confirmed that the factory, called Wing Star Shoes, made sports shoes for the company. He could not immediately say which market the shoes were shipped to, or whether the plant also made shoes for other brands.
Ken Loo, the secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, said that steel beams supporting the concrete floor of the storage area at mezzanine height between two buildings had given way.
He said Asics “offered its deepest sympathies” to the victims and their families, and that the company would consider actions to revamp safety measures at its overseas suppliers.
In addition to the two known deaths, nine workers were injured by falling concrete, three of them severely, Mr. Loo said.
Telephone calls to the Wing Star Shoes offices in Kampong Speu, the Cambodian province where the accident took place, were not answered on Thursday, and an e-mail to the company drew no immediate response.
One of the injured workers, Jonh Sokpheak, 29, said the structure above him collapsed without warning.
Popular with runners, Asics has been particularly successful in the American market, where it emphasizes corporate responsibility. According to the company’s Web site, the Asics name is an acronym “derived from the Latin phrase, Anima Sana In Corpore Sano — a sound mind in a sound body.”
“I feel like I’ve been reincarnated — I didn’t think I would survive,” Mr. Jonh said from his hospital bed in Phnom Penh. “The concrete ceiling fell all around me. I crawled and crawled and then made it outside.”
Bradley Gordon, an American lawyer based in Phnom Penh, said that Cambodia had strong laws on safety and other issues, drafted partly with help from international advisers over the last two decades, but that regulatory enforcement is often weak. Many factories in Cambodia have only been built in the past decade, so building collapses are rare.
Mr. Jonh and other survivors said the death toll could have been much higher if the collapse, which occurred around 7 a.m., had happened later, when more workers are usually in the area.
Mr. Gordon predicted that the Cambodian government would be genuinely worried about Thursday’s incident and would put a great deal of effort into making sure that there would be no further collapses.
Though it affected only a small area of a large plant, the accident in Cambodia attracted attention in the wake of the collapse of a garment factory complex in Bangladesh 22 days ago. That disaster killed at least 1,127 people and prompted calls for multinational retailers to assume more responsibility for the safety of workers at the companies that supply them with garments.
“The garment industry is one of the key industries in Cambodia and is just too important to the government and the population” for a problem like this not to receive considerable scrutiny, he said.
Workers at the plant here said they were making shoes for Asics, based in Kobe, Japan. Naomichi Hatori, a spokesman for Asics, confirmed that the factory, called Wing Star Shoes, made sports shoes for the company. Mr. Hatori said that Asics "offered its deepest sympathies" to the victims and their families, and that the company would consider measures to improve safety at its overseas suppliers.
Worker safety advocates were quick to cite Thursday’s incident as further evidence of a need for broad changes in how the West’s clothing and footwear are now made in poor countries.
He could not immediately say to which countries the shoes made there were shipped, nor whether the plant also made shoes for other brands. The Asics brand is popular with runners and has been particularly successful in the Unted States, where it emphasizes corporate responsibility.
“The shoe and garment industry is built upon huge profits and little concern for the well-being of their workers,” said Tessel Pauli, a spokeswoman for the Clean Clothes Campaign. “It is inherently unsafe and dangerous to work in. As long as workers are marginalized and deprived of their basic rights, the situation will not improve.”
The plant’s employees have been asked to report to work as usual on Monday, according to Komean Keang, a seamstress who was attending a wake on Thursday night for one of the workers who was killed, Ream Sa Roeun.
Multinational clothing retailers have been considering Cambodia as one of several countries that could be alternatives to Bangladesh for manufacturing. Cambodia has some of the lowest labor costs in Asia, with workers earning $120 a month in salary and benefits before overtime, but that compares with just $37 in Bangladesh.
Mr. Sa Roeun’s family was given compensation of $5,000 by the company, family members said. Entry-level workers at the factory, built on a former rice paddy, are paid around $75 a month, the minimum wage in Cambodia. Employees said that about 8,000 people work there.
Bruce Rockowitz, the group president and chief executive at Hong Kong-based Li & Fung, one of the world’s largest sourcing companies, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, before the Cambodian factory collapse, that the collapse of the factory in Bangladesh had already taught multinationals that visual inspections of factories’ structural stability was not enough.
Bradley Gordon, an American lawyer based in Phnom Penh, said that Cambodia has strong laws on safety and other issues, drafted partly with help from international advisers, but that regulatory enforcement is often weak. Building collapses have been rare, in part because Cambodia has relatively few old factories; most have been built in the last 10 years.
“We visually always inspected them, but you need true engineers,” he said.
Keith
Bradsher reported from Hong Kong and Thomas Fuller from Tream Tbal, Cambodia. Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo.
The far lower death toll from Thursday’s incident at the Cambodian factory, a low steel structure, than from the collapse of the eight-story Rana Plaza complex on the outskirts of Dhaka three weeks ago could intensify pressure on retailers to avoid buying from multistory factories. Any such shift could put Bangladesh, India and Pakistan at a disadvantage.
Factories in South Asia have tended to be taller because countries in that region have lagged in highway and road construction, and land prices have soared in those areas that do have good road access. In Bangladesh, factory owners have also complained of problems in persuading utilities to provide electricity and water connections suitable for larger sites.
