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On San Antonio Abad avenue, garment factories packed into unsafe buildings collapsed and trapped hundreds of seamstresses. Owners were seen trying to recover machinery, cash and records before bodies were recovered, while authorities treated the site as a property matter. The testimonies use the case to show that a disaster's death toll is set before the event by who is made to work where, under what conditions, and in whose buildings.
The book argues that the earthquake did not create the catastrophe so much as reveal it. Public buildings, housing blocks and hospitals collapsed while older structures stood, and survivors trace this back to bribed inspectors, ignored building codes and cheap construction. On this view the collapse pattern is a map of corruption, and the rubble is evidence against the state.
While the government stayed paralysed, refused foreign aid at first and held back information, ordinary residents organised rescue brigades, supply chains, triage and shelters within hours, without any central command. This self-organisation showed citizens a capacity they had not known they had. It became the seed of lasting neighbourhood and victims' movements that went on to demand housing and political reform.
The book treats the collected voices of survivors, rescuers and bereaved relatives as a rival archive to government figures, which minimised the death toll and praised the official response. Setting many first-person accounts side by side produces a truth that no single witness holds and no ministry can easily deny. Oral history becomes a tool of accountability, not just a way of remembering.