Bangladesh should continue to take forward the progress achieved in ensuring workplace safety following the two deadliest back-to-back industrial incidents to prevent a recurrence and save the lives of workers.

On this day exactly eight years ago, 113 workers were killed and 90 severely injured when a devastating fire broke out at an eight-storey building housing garment factory at Ashulia, some 35 kilometres east of capital Dhaka.

Tazreen Fashions' owner, Delwar Hossain, had constructed the building flouting rules.

International retailers and brands which used to source apparel items from the factories failed to notice not only the violations but also subcontracting operations being run by Hossain in the building.

Moreover, some government officials gave approval to the factory's construction sitting in the comfort of their air-conditioned offices without making a physical inspection of the site.

And all these happened because of profit-mongering, actions driven by greed and laxity in duties by some people, such as the factory owner, retailers and brands and government officials who allowed business in such a non-compliant factory building for years.

The way the workers ended up losing their lives is truly appalling.

Some guards had kept a number of exits locked in an apparent attempt at preventing the theft of different goods by the workers, effectively trapping the victims on different floors of the building and robbing them of any chance to escape the deadly smoke and flames.

The screaming workers kept running from one to end to another to get as far away as possible from the fiery blaze. Some tried to break the walls but could not.

A few who did manage to escape by jumping off a window suffered severe injuries from the impact of the fall. The next day revealed a queue of charred bodies, hapless victims who had been trying to get to the window.

Firefighters could not reach the spot on time as the roads leading to the building were narrow. They faced difficulties in dousing the fire because of a scarcity of water and lack of water bodies nearby.

"I can hardly describe the sad incident of the Tazreen Fashions fire as it was so severe for us," said Nazma Akter, president of Sammilito Garment Sramik Federation, a platform for workers' rights.

Many of the survivors are still traumatised, unable to return to a normal life. "So, their rehabilitation is needed both psychologically and financially," she said.

"Most of the families of the victims are still passing their days in dire straits because of financial hardship," Akter told The Daily Star over the phone while recounting the incident on the eve of its eighth anniversary.

"We have learnt a lot of lessons in workplace safety at the cost of many lives," she said.

"Workplace safety has progressed a lot in Bangladesh because of factory remediation with the recommendations of the Accord and the Alliance, but we need to maintain this progress so that no such incident occurs and claims more lives," Akter also said.

The Tazreen fire and the Rana Plaza building collapse shook up the country's garment industry and tarnished its image.

The buyers' European platform of Accord and North American platform of Alliance, formed by nearly 250 retailers and brands like H&M, Walmart, JC Penney and Primark, inspected nearly 3,000 garment supplying factories.

Together the platforms recommended electrical, fire and structural remediation for factory buildings to strengthen workplace safety.

The local garment factories have already implemented the recommendations spending more than $3 billion.

The Bangladesh government has twice provided a report on the progress in workplace safety to the office of the US Trade Representative for the reinstatement of the US Generalised System of Preferences.

The facility was withdrawn in June 2013 citing poor workplace safety and labour rights.

Both the Accord and the Alliance have been dissolved transferring the responsibility of continuing safety progress monitoring to a newly formed RMG Sustainability Council (RSC), a body formed with the representation of the owners, International Labour Organisation, union leaders and the retailers and brands.

"We want the RSC to uphold the inspection and monitoring of the safety progresses like the Accord," said Akter, urging for Hossain to be tried so that others do not even think about flouting compliance rules in the future.

"The workplace safety has progressed a lot in Bangladesh after the Tazreen Fashion fire and Rana Plaza building collapse," said Amirul Haque Amin, president of the National Garment Workers' Federation, another platform working to protect garment workers' rights.

"We need to maintain the progress and our achievements," he said.

The RSC should be allowed to work neutrally and independently so that the body can carry on the safety progresses in the workplaces, he said.

Delwar could not be reached for comments despite repeated attempts over the phone.