REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, SAVAR - Deep cracks visible in the walls of a Bangladesh garment building had compelled police to order it evacuated a day before it collapsed, officials said Thursday. More than 230 people were killed when the eight-story building splintered into a pile of concrete because factories based there ignored the order and kept more than 2,000 people working.

Wednesday's disaster in the Dhaka suburb of Savar is the worst ever for Bangladesh's booming and powerful garment industry, surpassing a fire less than five months earlier that killed 112 people. Workers at both sites made clothes for major brands around the world; some of the companies in the building that fell say their customers include retail giants such as Wal-Mart.

Hundreds of rescuers, some crawling through the maze of rubble in search of survivors and corpses, worked through the night and all day Thursday amid the cries of the trapped and the wails of workers' relatives gathered outside the building, called Rana Plaza. It housed several garment factories and a handful of other companies.

An Associated Press cameraman who went elsewhere into the rubble with rescue workers spoke briefly to a garment worker pinned face down in the darkness between concrete slabs and next to two corpses. Mohammad Altab (in picture) pleaded for help, but they were unable to free him.

"Save us, brother. I beg you, brother. I want to live," Altab moaned. "It's so painful here ... I have two little children."

After the cracks were reported in the walls of Rana Plaza on Tuesday, managers of a local bank that also had an office in the building evacuated their workers. The garment factories, though, kept working, ignoring the instructions of the local industrial police, said Mostafizur Rahman, a director of the specialized police force. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association also asked the factories to suspend work starting Wednesday morning, hours before the collapse.

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