Bangladesh: '$150m' Cost and 18 Months to Make Factories Safe

Work to bring Bangladeshi factories used by North American retailers, including Walmart and Gap, up to fire and building safety standards will cost more than $150m (£87.9m) and take at least 18 months to complete. In its first annual report, the U.S. Alliance for Bangladeshi Worker Safety, formed in the wake of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Dhaka in which more than 1,100 people died last April, said it had completed fire and building safety inspections of all the 587 factories its members now used.

Ten factories had been closed or partially closed, as a result of structural faults ...