Seven deaths at an October fire in a fabric mill in Bangladesh could have been prevented, Human Rights Watch has said.
In interviews, workers from the Aswad Composite Mills told Human Rights Watch that the fire hydrant system at the plant did not work properly, allowing the flames to spread quickly.
The fire is the latest in a series of garment-manufacturing catastrophes that have killed more than a thousand workers in the last year alone.
It is also a sign that foreign retailers need to take all reasonable steps to ensure all factories involved in their garment supply chain are safe places to work.
Seven people died in the fire at Aswad Composite Mills on October 8. Aswad supplied fabric for other Bangladeshi factories to turn into garments for North American and European clients such as Walmart, Gap, H and M and Carrefour.
The Bangladesh government and one of the retailers, Primark, said they had uncovered safety violations at the factory prior to the fire but no action was taken. Other companies said they had not inspected Aswad because they did not have a direct relationship with it.
"Bangladeshi workers continue to die while making cheap clothes for Western brands," said Brad Adams, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch.
"Though the retailers have belatedly promised to help improve safety conditions in the factories making their garments, they need to commit to end safety violations throughout their supply chains or the whole process will be fatally flawed," Adams added.
In the wake of the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex, which killed more than 1,100 garment workers in April 2013, most foreign retailers operating in Bangladesh have pledged to help improve the fire and building safety standards of hundreds of factories that directly make their clothes. But their commitments do not extend to subcontractors and suppliers like Aswad that play a major part in the supply chain.
The results of an official investigation into the fire have not yet been released, but two workers said that they saw the fire begin when the chimney of a drying machine overheated.
Several workers and the company's managing director told Human Rights Watch that hundreds of workers were safely evacuated, while seven men died later fighting the flames.
Human Rights Watch also spoke to five garment mill workers who said they attended a meeting the following day where they were told by a senior manager not to tell outsiders that the factory had run out of water.
Gap and Walmart are among a group of 23 North American companies that formed the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety in the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster.
More than 101 firms, most of them based in Europe, signed up to the separate Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.
Importantly, unlike the Alliance, the Accord is a legally binding agreement so firms are obliged to do something about safety violations where they are uncovered.
