On April 24th, 2013 Rana Plaza, an eight story garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed killing one thousand one hundred and twenty nine workers and injuring many more. To date, the
collapse of Rana Plaza is the worst industrial accident to take place in Bangladesh's ready-made garment sector. Factory collapses and factory fires are not an uncommon occurrence within the country's growing industry; the last decade alone has seen a number of fatalities and injuries to garment workers.
Man-made/technological disasters are the result of human error, negligence, or failure of a human-made system which causes damage to property and the environment as well as injuries and/or loss of life. Yet environmental disasters are caused by more than one factor. They are the result of many events and interactions over a period of time. Therefore, in order to fully understand what caused a disaster such as the collapse of Rana Plaza the broader context of the disaster requires examination.
In recognizing the importance of the broader context of a disaster, this major research paper aims to investigate the causes of the collapse of Rana Plaza. Using a sociological lens and primary and secondary documents this paper examines the political, economic, social, and corporate contexts which created the conditions for the collapse. This paper highlights weaknesses in the political, economic, corporate, and social structures involved and in doing so will provide recommendations for changes to remedy discrepancies that allow disasters to occur within Bangladesh's ready-made garment industry. Ideally learning from this disaster will help in preventing similar disasters from occurring; something garment industry workers in Bangladesh need and deserve
