Only the day before she had buried her man, Nazrul, a knitting machine operator perished in the country's deadliest building collapse on Monday. His body was retrieved two days later, on Wednesday.

Outside, rescuers were still digging into the rubbles, from which they pulled out six more badly decomposed bodies yesterday, six days into the disaster. The day also saw an injured garment worker die at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH), pushing the official death toll in the collapse to 62.

"Yesterday I buried my husband. And today I am standing here, as I have no money to buy food for my daughter," Shaera said.

Holding her seven-year-old daughter Nadia in her lap, Shaera was sitting beside several other women widowed in the Monday's nine-storey building collapse.

"I don't care for myself, but I could not manage enough food for Nadia since the death of my husband," Shaera said dejectedly.

Nazrul could not draw his last month's salary and was going to draw it on April 15, Shaera said. Factory authorities told her they would pay her later after drawing up a list of victims and how much they owe them, Shaera reported.

"We have come here hearing that the factory management will give the outstanding pays of the victims to their relatives today," said Kamala, another widow.

"But it seems to be a rumour, as we have not found any management man here," she said. "I don't know whether I would ever get that money."

Moni, who was also waiting at the same place with her mother to receive her late husband's salary for the last two months, did not say a single word. The body of her husband, Monir, was pulled out from under the debris on Monday.

Aleya, her mother said, "We owe Tk 1,500 to our landlord and the grocer near our house." She said they have been living on the water and food given as relief by volunteer organisations at the site.

"God took away our lone breadwinner and also forced us out in the open. There is no-one left to look after us," said the sobbing woman.

RESCUE EFFORT CONTINUES
Rescuers from the army and the Fire Brigade and Civil Defence continued their search for some 200 people still trapped under the debris.

Of the five bodies they recovered from the rubble yesterday, three were identified as Azizul Islam, Mizanur Rahman and Nurul Amin. The identities of the remaining two could not be known.

Savar police have already handed over the unidentified bodies to Savar Municipality authorities, who will bury them at Talbagh in Savar.

"The three other bodies are still lying at our station. We will hand them over to them [municipality] today, if no-one comes up to claim them," said the duty officer at Savar Police Station yesterday.

Rescuers have removed the mid-section of the roof of the third floor of the collapsed structure. They reckoned the death toll would rise sharply when they remove the entire roof of the floor by tonight.

Meanwhile, relatives reported two more workers -- Abdul Barek and Gias Uddin -- as missing, pushing the number of missing people to 100 yesterday.

According to the army control room for rescue operations at the site, 50 percent debris in the middle, 55 percent in the northern and 60 percent in the southern part have been removed so far.

"We hope to complete the operations by the end of this week," said Brigadier General Nizam Ahmed, who is co-ordinating the rescue effort.

The factory authorities yesterday morning launched a Quran recital the site, which would continue until the end of the rescue operation. They also have begun collecting the wreckage of machines.

DEATH OF INJURED
After six days of fighting for life, Abdul Gafur, 20, who suffered serious wounds in the chest and back in the building collapse, died at the DMCH yesterday.

Rescuers pulled out Gafur, a production operator, from beneath the rubbles 15 hours after the collapse. He was shifted to the DMCH from Combined Military Hospital at Savar Cantonment yesterday noon.

His uncle Abdul Kuddus said Gafur and his father migrated to Savar from village Nil of Harirampur in Manikganj when he was a student of Class V. Gafur, the main breadwinner of their five-member family, started working at a garment factory when he was 13.