The death toll from the collapse of a garment factory complex in Bangladesh rose past 1,000 Friday as dozens more corpses were found stacked in a ruined stairwell where victims sought shelter.

Brigadier General Siddiqul Alam, the army officer overseeing the recovery operation on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka, said the toll now stands at 1,041, making it one of the world’s deadliest industrial disasters.

Alam said many of the bodies were little more than skeletons, 17 days on from the implosion of the nine-storey Rana Plaza compound at Savar, and the stench from under the rubble suggested that many more were still to be located. - Video by Reuters, text by AFP.

For more, read: Bangladesh toll passes 1,000 as stacks of bodies found