Bosses arrested over Bangladesh building disaster

SAVAR: Police arrested two textile bosses Saturday over a Bangladeshi factory disaster as the death toll climbed to 332 and distraught relatives lashed out at rescuers trying to detect signs of life.

Around 40 people were pulled alive overnight from the ruins of the eight-storey Rana Plaza compound which caved in on Wednesday morning while thousands of garment workers were stitching clothes for Western brands.

But emergency workers warned their task was getting harder as any survivors still trapped in the rubble were now too weak to call for help.

News of the arrests of the two factory owners came after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed that those responsible for the country's deadliest industrial disaster would be hunted down and punished.

"We've arrested Bazlus Samad, the chairman of New Wave Buttons and New Wave Style factories, and Mahmudur Rahaman Tapash, a managing director of one of these plants, after midnight," Shyaml Mukherjee, the deputy chief of Dhaka police, told.

Police had filed a case against them for "death due to negligence", said Mukherjee. The overall owner of the building had still to be traced, he added.

Survivors have said the building developed visible cracks on Tuesday evening, but bosses ordered staff to return to the production lines.

A total of five factories were based in the complex at Savar on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka.