Mother's little helper

In the face of disaster, time doesn't stop. Survivors have to carry on somehow, struggling to rebuild shattered lives. When her workplace, Rana Plaza in Savar, collapsed on 24 April 2013, Rebeka Khatun lost both her legs. She was found under the rubble after four days by the army. Five years on and Rebeka has done her best to adapt. In the process she's found support from a most surprising quarter: her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Sidratul Montaha.

“It was totally uncertain that I could even become a mother,” says Rebeka, at her modest home in Barai Chairmanpara in Dinajpur's Phulbari upazila. “My daughter is such a blessing.”

“Rebeka faces difficulty even to move around,” explains husband Mostafiz, who works as a farm labourer. “I do what I can to help her but I can't give much time since I have to earn an income. These last eight months or so, our daughter has contributed a lot. Despite her young age there are many things she can do.”

To visit the home is to find Sidratul cutting cucumbers with a traditional boti. She stops to acknowledge the visitor, turning on a light and a fan before resuming her work.

“My daughter feeds the chickens,” Rebeka says. “She opens and closes doors for visitors and sometimes she even does risky chores like cutting vegetables. I use my hands to get about the house so they aren't in good condition.”

Rebeka, who still finds it painful to move around, faced surgery ten times after the building collapse. It took almost two years before she was well enough to return to her family home.

“As a mother I can't even nurse her in my lap,” a teary Rebeka continues, “but she does so much to look after me. God gave me a daughter who is capable, a daughter who likes to help.”

On that fateful morning in 2013 Rebeka and her mother Chan Babu left home together to reach the factory where they worked. “We'd seen the cracks in the building the day before,” she remembers. “Many garment workers were refusing to enter the building but the factory owners forced them. At around 8:45am the building was shaking a lot. Then, suddenly, it collapsed.”

After her rescue, Rebeka was sent to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation. One of her legs was amputated from her upper thigh, the other from above the knee. It was a year before she learnt that her mother had died that day.

The Rana Plaza collapse was the largest industrial disaster in the country's history. Around 1,134people were killed; a further 2,500 people were injured.