Teenager rescued from Bangla factory rubble after 400 hours

In what can only be described as a miracle, a 19-year-old girl was on Friday dramatically pulled out from under tonnes of debris on the 17th day of the country's worst ever industrial disaster that has claimed nearly 1,050 lives.

The woman -- identified as Reshma -- is almost unhurt and undergoing medical check up at the SavarCombinedMilitaryHospital, where Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina talked to her over telephone and inquired about her wellbeing.

"We have safely retrieved her," Bangladesh army Lt Col Moazzem Hossain told newsmen at the site of the toppled building.

Reshma was miraculously located alive after rescuers heard someone pleading from the debris, "Please rescue me".

After being located, she was given food, water and oxygen. The crowd cheered as Reshma, wearing a purple dress, was brought out from the ruins.

"It's an unprecedented incident," Hasina said while congratulating the rescuers. Reshma, a mother of a girl child, was working as a swing operator in one of the five garment factories housed at the eight-storey RanaPlaza that collapsed on April 24.

The death toll in the disaster crossed the 1,000 mark on Friday with more bodies being retrieved and stands at 1,050. A total of 2,444 people have been rescued alive so far.

"The woman signalled us by hitting an iron rod on the rubble as we approached the basement (of the ruined structure)," a fire service official told newsmen.

The military official who retrieved her said after the detection of a "living object", rescuers tried to locate her using torchlight and found her in the basement where the official along with an army major penetrated through a hole.

"I told her, mother don't be afraid, we are here to rescue you... we would you like to drink water," Moazzem said. The dehydrated woman was immediately given saline water and biscuits as rescuers pulled the frail-looking woman, he said.

The last survivor was rescued on the sixth day after the collapse.