Ripley's Blog | Ripple's Web

(CNN) — Kyle Davis was 100% boy. He loved going with his grandpa to see Monster Trucks, and would hoot and clap whenever one of those giant things would roll over and crush a smaller car. Because he was a good kid and got A’s and B’s, his family would sometimes reward him with a trip to the lake and let him ride his four-wheeler around.

The 8-year-old was a force on the soccer field. His stocky build earned him a nickname: “The Wall.”

“Kids just bounced off of him,” Davis’ grandfather Marvin Dixon said Wednesday. “He just loved being with his Pawpaw and I loved being with him. I’m just going to miss him.”

Kyle was among 24 people who lost their lives Monday when a massive tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma, just outside Oklahoma City.

An aerial view of the destruction caused by the massive tornado that struck areas south of Oklahoma City on Monday, May 20, shows the magnitude of damage left in its path. The storm’s winds topped 200 mph as it carved a 17-mile path of destruction through Oklahoma City suburbs. On Tuesday, May 21, CNN sent photographer David McNeese to capture the story from above:

The storm, which touched down near Newcastle, Oklahoma, spanned 1.3 miles. Some areas along the path were completely flattened.

Officials from the National Weather Service gave the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma, on May 20 a preliminary EF5 rating — the highest score on the scale that measures tornado intensities.

The tornado tore through the Oklahoma City suburbs, hitting the town of Moore the hardest. It packed winds that topped 200 mph.

A search-and-rescue effort to find survivors shifted Tuesday to one of recovery, officials said.

The devastation in Moore was so complete that the mayor said city officials were racing to print new street signs to help guide rescuers and residents through a suddenly twisted and unfamiliar landscape.

A group of homes was reduced to rubble.

Debris from homes and structures was strewn for miles around.

In some areas, the homes of an entire street were destroyed.

Rescuers and first responders immediately began searching through the rubble of structures on May 20.

Large trees were uprooted and flattened.

Given its breadth and power, the tornado ranks among some of the strongest storms ever to strike the United States, CNN senior meteorologist Dave Hennen said.

Homes in some areas were relatively undamaged while others very nearby were destroyed.

Police, firefighters, volunteers and nearly 180 National Guard troops joined forces Tuesday in searching the rubble and securing areas hit by the storm.

In 1999 and then again in 2003, Moore took direct hits from tornadoes that took eerily similar paths to 2013′s twister. The 1999 storm packed the strongest wind speeds in history, Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb said.

A section of a bridge outside of Oklahoma City was blown off its foundation.

The path of the tornado is clearly visible with dirt and debris painting a wide path across the Oklahoma landscape.

The scene — block after block of flattened homes and businesses, the gutted remains of a hospital and hits on two elementary schools — left even seasoned veterans of Oklahoma’s infamous tornadoes reeling.

View more galleries: Deadly tornado hits Oklahoma City area and The devastating Oklahoma tornado of 1999.

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Photos: Destruction from above

Father, aunt grieve for 9 yr.-old girl

He was one of seven children who died at Plaza Towers Elementary School.

His parents called him ‘Hammy’

Talking to Marvin Dixon and Kyle’s grandmother, Sharon Dixon, it’s clear right away that you don’t have to ask any questions about the third-grader. So broken-hearted but so full of love and memories for their grandson, they just want to talk about him.

“I could talk to you all day about him because he was our son, too,” Sharon Dixon said. “He was always asking, ‘Can I stay at your house?’ We kept a nightlight on for him because he was afraid of the dark.”

Editor’s note: David King has a PhD in molecular biology and is the director of Human Genetics Alert, an independent watchdog group. He focuses on the ethical and social issues raised by genetics.

(CNN) — Today was a strange day. I’m used to handling the brief but overwhelming burst of media attention that comes with new stories about medical breakthroughs and ethical issues. But I don’t often get an accompanying deluge of passionate e-mails and phone calls from people who had read my comments, denouncing me for criticizing science, especially medical research that “can save millions of lives.”

There is definitely something special about this idea of “therapeutic cloning,” something that has a religious feel to it. Most of those messages come from people who have family members suffering from some of the diseases that we are told will be cured, and it’s hard to have to pour cold water on people’s hopes.

Editor’s note: Grace Liu, a former corporate attorney, is a research officer at California State University, Fresno. She is the vice president of the Central California Asian Pacific American Bar Association.

(CNN) — It’s time for some tiger cubs to approvingly roar for our strict parents, their domineering ways and their inflexibly high standards.

The current depiction of tiger parenting is decidedly negative. Kim Wong Keltner’s book on “Tiger Babies Strike Back” and Su Yeong Kim’s report “Does Tiger Parenting Exist? Parenting Profiles of Chinese Americans and Adolescent Developmental Outcomes” suggest that strict Asian-style parenting produces an army of disengaged or emotionally stunted robots.

While I can’t speak for everyone, my own experience suggests that such upbringing also gives us the smarts to recognize our emotional and social deficiencies and to address them.

My parents are immigrants from Taiwan. I was an only child, and I was expected to excel academically and extracurricularly. So, I delivered. I got straight A’s. I played violin for hours. I did extra math, chemistry and physics problem sets under the eagle-eyed gaze of my mother.

Through it all, I cried and screamed. A lot. My mom yelled back. A lot. I told her I hated my life, my teachers, my school and all my activities. She yelled that I just had to get through it. Quitting was not an option. And of course she was right.

2012: ‘Tiger Mom’ meet ‘Panda Dad’

2012: Tiger Mom author Amy Chua

Tiger parents express their love through expectation of greatness, not in acceptance of mediocrity. Some people interpret such expectation as parental rejection of their worth as individuals. I always interpreted such crushing expectation as the ultimate belief in my self-worth. I knew that I was not being set up to fail.

My mother did not push me to excel because she prized my accomplishments more than my feelings. She listened to my feelings, but she also knew that my teenage feelings were volatile and irrational. She knew better than to let my future be derailed by such feelings.

My mother also knows that life has many obstacles, some external, many internal. She loved me too much to let me give up easily when confronted with those obstacles. For that I am eternally grateful.

I gained confidence and resilience from tackling my endless workload and from fighting through sleep deprivation. I knew that I was capable of getting through seemingly impossible situations. I knew that if I failed, then I just had to try harder. Failure is not a permanent state, but merely a temporary challenge that had to be tackled creatively.

The knock against tiger parenting style is that it does not foster emotional and social development.

Well, it partly comes down to expressing love and affection differently. Tiger parents may not often say “I love you,” but actions speak louder than words. My family never would have spent the time, money and effort—not to mention the emotional energy—on me if they did not love me. They never said this, of course. But I knew.

Sure, my mother viewed socializing with others as a waste of time. She wanted me to be valedictorian, not homecoming queen. I didn’t attend my homecoming. I was probably studying or working on my science project.

Now, I readily acknowledge that there is great value in socializing with others, and that my current social skills probably would be better if I had more time to hang out at the mall or at Denny’s.

But childhood hours are limited. Each child only has about 157,680 hours before he/she turns 18. The opportunity cost of being an accomplished child is that it takes away time from making friends and nurturing relationships.

For me, the tradeoff was worth it. There are skills that can only be learned in childhood. It is hard for a student to catch up academically if she is significantly behind in high school. But someone can become more self-aware, work on social skills and learn negotiating tactics later in life.

Without the skills and expertise that is a result of excelling, I would never have the chance to sit at the important tables to participate in the discussions, no matter how great my social skills.

I value my tiger cub upbringing mostly for the tools it gives me to make a difference in my community. I know plenty of grown up tiger cubs who tutor at-risk youth, advocate for the disadvantaged, and generally strive to improve the world. Our childhood accomplishments enable us to meaningfully contribute to our communities.

And isn’t that where self-awareness and proper socialization lead us all?

(CNN) — A human embryo, containing about a couple hundred cells, is smaller than the period at the end of a sentence. Scientists need strong microscopes to see these precursors to life, and to take from them stem cells, which have the potential to become any cell in the body.

Understanding the stem cell breakthrough

Indian clinic’s stem cell therapy real?

Heart stem cells repair muscle damage

Embryonic stems research is inherently controversial because in order to use the stem cells for science, the embryo, which is a collection of cells that could develop into a fully formed human, is destroyed, even though embryos in these procedures are left over from in vitro fertilization.

However, Mitalipov said the embryos created in his study, from skin cells and eggs, would not grow babies. That would have required additional technology, and it wasn’t part of the study.

While cloning stem cells is a technical breakthrough, there’s already a method of deriving embryonic-like stem cells that doesn’t require the use of embryos at all: induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, said Dr. George Daley, who is director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Children’s Hospital Boston and an international expert in stem cells.

Induced pluripotent stem cells can come from any cell in the human body, including skin cells, so they don’t have the moral quandaries surrounding them. Researchers have developed methods of inserting genes to “turn back the clock” on cells that have already specialized, so that they can turn into anything again. It doesn’t matter what the cell was before; it can now be reprogrammed as any kind of cell researchers want.

The new study involves a complex method that requires women to donate eggs, and a demanding manipulation of cell components on a tiny scale, Daley said.

What remains to be seen is whether these cloned embryonic stem cells are more useful therapeutically than the noncontroversial induced pluripotent stem cells, and questions linger about their effectiveness.

What’s the best type of stem cell

Ethical questions aside, researchers say they need to explore both embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells in order to see what works best for various diseases and conditions.

Safety concerns linger around induced pluripotent stem cells because they were first created inserting four new genes.

“Remember, this was a genetic manipulation that was done to generate those cells, and there is concern that (for) anything you derive from them and you put back in the patient as graft, you may be at risk,” said John Gearhart, directorof the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the leading pioneers of stem cell research.

New techniques have been developed, however, to make induced pluripotent stem cells without permanent genetic modifications that were associated with tumors.

In mice, Daley and colleagues have shown that stem cells derived from the nuclear transfer of cells to make embryos — the technique described in Mitalipov’s paper — were indeed closer to natural embryo stem cells than induced pluripotent stem cells. The differences were so subtle that they may not be meaningful, however, he said.

(CNN) — A human embryo, containing about a couple hundred cells, is smaller than the period at the end of a sentence. Scientists need strong microscopes to see these precursors to life, and to take from them stem cells, which have the potential to become any cell in the body.

Understanding the stem cell breakthrough

Indian clinic’s stem cell therapy real?

Heart stem cells repair muscle damage

Embryonic stems research is inherently controversial because in order to use the stem cells for science, the embryo, which is a collection of cells that could develop into a fully formed human, is destroyed, even though embryos in these procedures are left over from in vitro fertilization.

However, Mitalipov said the embryos created in his study, from skin cells and eggs, would not grow babies. That would have required additional technology, and it wasn’t part of the study.

While cloning stem cells is a technical breakthrough, there’s already a method of deriving embryonic-like stem cells that doesn’t require the use of embryos at all: induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, said Dr. George Daley, who is director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Children’s Hospital Boston and an international expert in stem cells.

Induced pluripotent stem cells can come from any cell in the human body, including skin cells, so they don’t have the moral quandaries surrounding them. Researchers have developed methods of inserting genes to “turn back the clock” on cells that have already specialized, so that they can turn into anything again. It doesn’t matter what the cell was before; it can now be reprogrammed as any kind of cell researchers want.

The new study involves a complex method that requires women to donate eggs, and a demanding manipulation of cell components on a tiny scale, Daley said.

What remains to be seen is whether these cloned embryonic stem cells are more useful therapeutically than the noncontroversial induced pluripotent stem cells, and questions linger about their effectiveness.

What’s the best type of stem cell

Ethical questions aside, researchers say they need to explore both embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells in order to see what works best for various diseases and conditions.

Safety concerns linger around induced pluripotent stem cells because they were first created inserting four new genes.

“Remember, this was a genetic manipulation that was done to generate those cells, and there is concern that (for) anything you derive from them and you put back in the patient as graft, you may be at risk,” said John Gearhart, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the leading pioneers of stem cell research.

New techniques have been developed, however, to make induced pluripotent stem cells without permanent genetic modifications that were associated with tumors.

In mice, Daley and colleagues have shown that stem cells derived from the nuclear transfer of cells to make embryos — the technique described in Mitalipov’s paper — were indeed closer to natural embryo stem cells than induced pluripotent stem cells. The differences were so subtle that they may not be meaningful, however, he said.

Editor’s note: David King has a PhD in molecular biology and is the director of Human Genetics Alert, an independent watchdog group. He focuses on the ethical and social issues raised by genetics.

(CNN) — Today was a strange day. I’m used to handling the brief but overwhelming burst of media attention that comes with new stories about medical breakthroughs and ethical issues. But I don’t often get an accompanying deluge of passionate e-mails and phone calls from people who had read my comments, denouncing me for criticizing science, especially medical research that “can save millions of lives.”

There is definitely something special about this idea of “therapeutic cloning,” something that has a religious feel to it. Most of those messages come from people who have family members suffering from some of the diseases that we are told will be cured, and it’s hard to have to pour cold water on people’s hopes.

Dhaka, Bangladesh (CNN) — “Save me!” a man’s voice cries out in the darkness. “Please save me!”

“I can’t see you,” she replies. “I don’t know where you are.”

“Save me! Please save me!” the voice pleads again.

“I want to,” she says. “But I can’t move either.”

She loses consciousness.

When she wakes, the voice is gone.

In that cramped, dark grave under 700 tons of concrete and steel, she is all alone.

****

The concept of purgatory isn’t familiar to most Bangladeshis.

Last Bangladesh collapse survivor speaks

Bangladesh survivor remains in hospital

Factory survivor ‘out of danger’

Bangladesh recovery efforts end

Rescue workers carry Reshma Begum, 19, to safety on Friday, May 10, a day after her discovery alive amid the wreckage of a building that had entombed her since it collapsed on April 24, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. At least 1,127 people have been confirmed dead from the garment factory building collapse.

Begum, a young female garment worker at the Rana Plaza building before the disaster, addresses the media at the Savar Combined Military Hospital in Savar area of Dhaka on Monday, May 13.

Throngs of reporters crowd around Begum as she speaks publicly for the first time on May 13 about her ordeal in Dhaka.

Begum is surrounded by media and members of the Bangladeshi military at the hospital where she is recovering in Dhaka on May 13.

A nurse helps Begum through a door as she attends a media conference at the Savar Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on May 13.

Begum rests in her hospital bed as members of the Bangladeshi military stand beside her at the Savar Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on Saturday, May 11.

Begum was found in the factory’s basement in a pool of water, according to rescue official Lt. Col. Moazzem Hossain.

Bangladeshi army workers supervise the continued rescue operation using heavy equipment to sift through the rubble on May 10 in Dhaka.

Rescuers workers administer first aid as they carry Begum from the rubble on May 10 in Dhaka.

Begum is pulled alive from the rubble by the rescue workers on May 10, after being buried for 16 days.

Begum recalled that when the collapse of the nine-story building began, she was working on the third floor. She was found in the factory’s basement.

The 19-year-old mother vowed to never again work in the country’s garment industry, where she was earning the equivalent of $60 a month.

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Reshma, a story of survival

Members of the Bangladesh army pray at the site of the collapsed Rana Plaza in Savar near Dhaka on Tuesday, May 14. The army-led effort to search for bodies has ended nearly three weeks after the nine-story building collapsed. The final death toll stands at 1,127.

Relatives of missing garment workers offer prayers in front of the rubble on May 14 in Savar.

A white board at the recovery command center near the disaster is used to track the death toll on Monday, May 13.

Heavy equipment sifts through the rubble of the garment factory building collapse on Sunday, May 12.

A woman cries holds a portrait of a missing relative believed to be trapped in the rubble of the Rana Plaza building on Saturday, May 11.

Bangladeshi garment worker Reshma Begum, a seamstress who survived 16 days trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building, rests in Savar Cantonment Hospital on the outskirts of Dhaka on May 11.

Relatives search through a long line of covered decomposing bodies to try to identify their family members on May 11.

Rescue workers retrieve Reshma from the rubble in Savar, Bangladesh, on Friday, May 10. She got rescue workers’ attention by waving an iron rod. She was found in a pool of water, which allowed her to stay alive.

An injured worker who survived the building collapse is carried by her husband to collect her wages in Savar near Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Wednesday, May 8.

Garment workers who survived the building collapse line up to collect their salaries in Savar on May 8.

Workers continue rescue and recovery operations on Tuesday, May 7, nearly two weeks after the Rana Plaza building’s collapse outside Dhaka.

Rescue workers recover a body from the rubble on May 7.

Relatives place a body in the back of a truck on May 7.

A woman attempts to identify one of the bodies kept in a schoolyard on May 7.

Members of the Bangladeshi army and firefighters carry the body of a garment worker from the scene of the building collapse in Savar, outside Dhaka, on Sunday, May 5.

A woman holds a portrait of her missing relative as she sleeps on Saturday, May 4.

Relatives attempt to identify the bodies of loved ones on May 4.

Rescue workers dig out debris from the Rana Plaza building as Bangladeshi army personnel continue the second phase of a rescue operation using heavy equipment on Friday, May 3.

A woman reacts on May 3 after identifying a body found in the rubble.

A man stands amid the destruction as rescue and army personnel continue recovery operations on May 3.

A woman holds up a picture of a missing person believed to be trapped in the rubble on May 3.

A garment worker rescued from the wreckage of the Rana Plaza building lies in a hospital in Dhaka on Thursday, May 2.

A woman weeps after identifying her daughter’s body in the rubble in Savar on May 2.

Rescue workers move debris as Bangladeshi army personnel continue the second phase of a rescue operation at the site of the collapsed building in Savar on May 2.

A woman mourns before a mass burial in Dhaka on Wednesday, May 1.

Unidentified bodies from the rubble lie on the ground as people gather for a mass burial in Dhaka on May 1.

Workers dig graves during a mass burial of unidentified garment workers on May 1.

Sohel Rana, owner of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, wears police-issued body armor and a helmet while being escorted to court in Dhaka on Tuesday, April 30. Rana was arrested near the Indian border, and protesters called for him to be hanged.

Bangladeshi troops carry the body of a garment worker out of the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building in Savar on April 30.

Clothing with Joe Fresh labels lies in the debris on April 30.

Cranes operated by Bangladeshi army personnel work on Monday, April 29.

Firefighters try to control a blaze that started while they were trying to rescue a woman with heavy equipment on April 29.

Bangladeshi army personnel begin the second phase of the rescue operation using heavy equipment on April 29.

Rescuers look for survivors on Sunday, April 28. The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society says the chances of finding anyone alive in the rubble at this date are remote.

A woman mourns on April 28 at the site of the building collapse in Savar.

Rescue workers search for survivors on April 28.

Volunteers sleep before they begin more rescue operations on April 28.

Rescue workers carry a victim’s body recovered from the rubble on April 28.

Clothes lie in the rubble on Saturday, April 27.

An arrested owner of a garment factory is escorted to an appearance at the court in Dhaka on April 27. Four people were arrested and four others are being questioned by police.

Relatives hold photos of missing and dead workers outside the factory April 27.

Two Bangladeshi women look at a board with notices posted of missing and dead workers on April 27.

Bangladeshi relatives and workers load a body onto a truck on April 27.

An excavator operated by the Bangladeshi Army removes debris on April 26.

Volunteers and rescue workers conduct rescue operations on April 26.

Rescue workers use textile as a slide to move bodies out of the rubble on April 26.

Rescue workers look for trapped garment workers on April 26.

Rescue workers stand on the rubble of the collapsed building on April 26.

Rescue workers search the rubble for victims and survivors on April 26.

A rescue worker looks for trapped workers on April 26.

Bangladeshi army personnel recover a survivor from rubble on April 26, 48 hours after the collapse.

Volunteers and rescue workers assist in rescue operations on April 26.

A physician assists a survivor after he was recovered from the rubble on April 26.

Two bodies clutch each other in the rubble on Thursday, April 25.

People rescue garment workers on April 25.

A Bangladeshi woman shows a picture of her missing daughter-in-law she believes is trapped in the collapsed building on April 25.

Bangladeshi firefighters cut a hole through concrete during rescue operations on April 25 in Savar, a suburb of Dhaka.

Volunteers and rescue workers work at the scene on April 25.

A woman appears devastated on April 25 after identifying the body of her husband killed in the building collapse.

Bangladeshi garment workers help evacuate a survivor by using a roll of fabric on April 24.

People rescue garment workers on Wednesday, April 24, after the building caved in, leaving a chaotic mass of broken concrete and twisted metal.

Relatives who lost a brother mourn outside a hospital on April 24.

Rescuers help an injured garment worker to escape from the Rana Plaza building on the outskirts of Dhaka on April 24.

Civilians help an injured garment worker on April 24. Work was proceeding slowly to avoid causing further collapse, an official said.

Rescue workers search for trapped garment workers in the Rana Plaza building on April 24.

An injured Bangladeshi lies on the hospital floor on April 24.

The injured receive treatment at a hospital on April 24.

An injured person rests in a hospital bed on April 24.

People wait anxiously on April 24 while rescuers search for survivors.

Rescuers help an injured person out of the seventh floor on April 24.

Civilians help out in rescue efforts at the collapsed building on April 24.

Hundreds watch the rescue operations on April 24.

People search for garment workers trapped under the debris on April 24.

Rescuers help an injured worker on April 24.

A body is trapped under the damaged building on April 24.

A woman is carried away from the building on April 24.

A rescue worker carries a worker to an ambulance on April 24.

Crowds gather around the collapsed building on April 24.

Rescuers bring out an injured garment worker from the building’s sixth floor.

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Photos: Building collapses in Bangladesh

Seventeen days after a building collapsed in Savar, Bangladesh, rescuers pull Reshma Begum from the rubble on May 10. More than 1,000 people have died since the nine-story garment factory building fell on April 24.

An officer of the Italian cruise line Costa Concordia, Manrico Giampedroni, is found 36 hours after the ship ran aground off the Mediterranean island of Giglio on January 13, 2012. He broke his leg as the liner rolled was was found in a half-flooded dining room, suffering from hypothermia.

A baby, her mother and her grandmother are rescued in eastern Turkey on October 25, 2011, two days after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake killed more than 600 people. Dramatic video showed 2-week-old Arza Karaduman being carried from the debris of a multiple-story building.

More than 9 miles out at sea, a 60-year-old Japanese man is found clinging to the swept-away remnants of his home on March 13, 2011. Hiromitsu Shinkawa was drifting alone for more than two days after a massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Anne Vos, 57, is rescued 24 hours after a five-story building where she worked collapsed during an earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, on February 22, 2011. She said she thought she was going to die and had called family and friends to say goodbye. She talked to international media while trapped.

After 69 harrowing days underground and a rescue mission costing up to $20 million, 33 Chilean miners are rescued on October 13, 2010. The mine collapsed on August 5, leaving the workers trapped 2,300 feet beneath the Earth’s surface.

Digging through the mud, Chinese soldiers rescue Liu Ma Shendeng from the second story of an apartment building on August 10, 2010. The 52-year-old man was trapped for 60 hours after massive mudslides buried homes and ripped others apart in China’s Gansu province. The death toll climbed to more than 1,400.

Nine-year-old Ruben van Assouw is the sole survivor of a plane crash in Tripoli, Libya, on May 14, 2010. His parents and brother are among the 103 people killed.

A man identified as Evan Muncie, 28, is found in the ruins of a marketplace, his family tells CNN, nearly a month after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010. He suffered from extreme dehydration and malnutrition, but did not appear to have significant crushing injuries, doctors said.

A 13-year-old girl is found in the Indian Ocean clinging to plane debris after the Yemenia Airways Airbus A310 from France crashed on June 1, 2009. Bahia Bakari was the sole survivor of the crash. She had been flying with her mother.

Naqsha Bibi, 40, is recovered alive from the debris of her collapsed home in Kashmir on December 12, 2005. She reportedly survived on rainwater and rotting food for more than 60 days after an earthquake struck the region on October 8.

Rashida Farooq, a 45-year-old mother of three, is rescued from her home 105 hours after it collapsed in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, on October 12, 2005. The 7.6-magnitude earthquake that hit the country killed 80,000 people.

A man identified as Jalil, 57, is rescued 13 days after an earthquake in Bam, Iran, on December 26, 2003. He was trapped under a closet and must have had access to water, an Iranian doctor told Reuters.

After being trapped for more than three days, nine miners are rescued from the Quecreek coal mine in Somerset, Pennsylvania, on July 28, 2002. They were caught in a 4-foot-high chamber 240 feet underground after breaching a wall separating their mine from an older, flooded shaft on July 24.

Genelle Guzman-McMillan is rescued from the debris of the World Trade Center 26 hours after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. She worked on the 64th floor of the north tower and was walking down a stairwell when the building collapsed. Her body was protected in an air pocket.

Shiran Franco, a 9-year-old Israeli girl, is rescued on August 21,1999, around 100 hours after a building collapsed on her during an earthquake in Cinarcik, Turkey. Her family had been on vacation. Shiran’s twin brother, father and grandparents were found dead, but her mother survived after pulling herself from the building after 30 hours.

Three infants are pulled alive from the crumbled Benito Juarez Hospital seven days after a powerful earthquake hit the Mexican capital on September 19, 1985. With more than 10,000 people killed, the newborns became known as the “miracle babies” of Mexico City.

Sixteen people are rescued 72 days after a Uruguayan Air Force plane crashed in the Andes Mountains on October 13, 1972. They endured frigid temperatures and forced themselves to eat the flesh of dead friends to sustain themselves. A dozen of the 45 passengers on board died in the crash. Others later succumbed to their injuries.

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Survivors: Stories of hope amid disaster

Marching Bangladeshis hold up portraits of relatives missing in the Rana Plaza building collapse on Tuesday, May 14. They’re demanding wages for the missing garment workers and the death sentence for the building owner. Rana Plaza collapsed on April 24 in Savar outside Dhaka; the final death toll stands at 1,127.

Family members of missing workers march on May 14. The Bangladeshi army has wrapped up its search for bodies.

Bangladeshi property tycoon Sohel Rana, center, is escorted to the High Court in Dhaka wearing police-issued body armor as protests calling for his prosecution continue, Tuesday, April 30.

Bangladeshis march on April 30, demanding capital punishment for Rana in Savar, Bangladesh, outside the capital, Dhaka.

Garment workers block a street during a protest Monday, April 29.

Bangladeshi garment workers protest in Savar on Saturday, April 27. Four people were arrested and four others are being questioned by police. The building owner has gone into hiding.

Bangladeshi army personnel and police from villagers on Friday, April 26, after protests broke out at the site of a building collapse 48 hours earlier in Savar, outside Dhaka.

Garment workers block a street in Savar, demanding the arrest of the owner of the Rana Plaza building.

Bangladeshi police fire tear gas at protesters amid the rubble of the building.

Garment workers block a street as they march to demand the arrest of the owner of the Rana Plaza building.

Plainclothes Bangladeshi police brandish sticks as they attempt to break up protests.

Firefighters work after protesters set fire to a spinning mill in Gazipur.

A man cleans up a restaurant after protesters broke its windows.

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Photos: Bangladeshis protest building collapse

Savar, once an undeveloped agricultural patch of land just outside Dhaka, has grown into a chaotic, potholed boomtown, home to a disproportionate number of the country’s 4,500 garment factories.

And Reshma quickly found a job at Rana Plaza, a gargantuan, nine-story, city-block-sized structure that housed shops, a bank and five garment workshops.

The $60 she earned a month was twice the average for garment workers in Bangladesh.

Still, the loss of her husband’s additional earnings meant she barely squeaked by.

***

“I have to find a way to chop this off,” Reshma thinks.

Her long dark hair is caught under a slab of concrete. Every time she tries to move, large chunks of hair are pulled out of her head.

She feels around in the darkness to see what she can find.

A pair of scissors.

She grabs a handful of hair.

Snip.

She is now free to explore on her hands and knees this dust-choked cocoon.

***

When the first cracks appeared in the exterior walls of Rana Plaza, the news spread among the workers in quick murmurs.

The building was built without the right permits on land that used to be a pond, officials now say. The weak foundation was threatened even further when the owner added four floors to what was once a five-story structure.

Generators hummed on the fourth floor, sometimes so loudly that workers said they could feel the structure vibrate.

But all this was revealed after the fact. After Rana Plaza pancaked on April 24. After it claimed more than 1,100 lives.

On April 23, the owner, Sohel Rana, called in an engineer to inspect the building and appease worker concerns.

The engineer, officials later said, took one look at support pillars on the third floor and was horrified. The fissures were deep — and many.

The building is unsound, he said. No one should be inside.

Rana dismissed those concerns.

“This building will stand a hundred years,” he boasted that day.

The factory owners were relieved. Political unrest in the country has meant frequent general strikes and a backlog of orders for them. They couldn’t afford a work stoppage if they intended to keep their foreign clients happy.

The industry generates more than $20 billion a year, making the country the second largest exporter of clothing after China.

So they gave the workers an ultimatum: Miss work, miss pay.

The next morning at work, Reshma and others checked out the cracks. They looked ominous.

“The managers said, ‘That’s just water damage. Go back to work,’ ” she said.

She did, taking her spot among the long rows of sewing machines at New Wave Bottoms.

An hour later, the power failed. Then came a loud rumble.

Pillars crashed. Support beams punched through windows. Dust and debris clogged the air.

The ceiling raced toward Reshma. And the floors gave way.

“I fell. And I fell,” Reshma said.

Then she blacked out.

***

Reshma crawls across the rubble with the little strength she can muster.

“Water,” she tells herself. “I have to find water.”

She’d found a little in a bottle soon after the fall.

But how long ago was that?

Hours? Days? Weeks? In this darkness, she can’t tell.

The anguished cries around her stopped a long time ago.

The man who’d begged her for help was the last voice.

Darkness. Silence. Desperation.

She drags through the detritus, her clothing ripping to shreds.

She pokes bricks with a rod. One tiny space leads to another. Each an air pocket within the sandwiched structure.

She scavenges for food. The four crackers she’d found in the ruins and rationed carefully are gone.

What she really needs is water.

She eventually finds it.

With cupped palms, she pours it down her parched throat.

“I didn’t know if it was rainwater or dirty water or what type of water,” she later says. “It didn’t matter.”

She doesn’t know it, but she’s in the flooded basement of Rana Plaza.

***

It’s 170 miles from Dinajpur to Dhaka, a trek along congested roads that can take up to 10 hours.

Reshma’s mother heard of the collapse on TV. But there was no way for her to reach her daughter.

Reshma had sold her mobile phone three days earlier to help pay rent.

Scrounging up what little change she had lying around, Zubeida boarded a bus to the capital.

She checked the morgue and the hospitals.

She showed a picture of Reshma to every rescuer she met. No one had seen her.

For the first few days, she steadfastly held on to hope. Rescuers had been pulling out survivors from the rubble by the dozens each day. More than 2,000 of them in all.

But as the days passed, the number dwindled. And with it died Zubeida’s hopes.

She wandered aimlessly around the disaster site.

Strangers brought her rice, offered her an umbrella, consoled her.

“I wanted my daughter’s body,” she said. “I wanted a leg or an arm or anything that I could take home and bury.”

Dhaka, Bangladesh (CNN) — “Save me!” a man’s voice cries out in the darkness. “Please save me!”

“I can’t see you,” she replies. “I don’t know where you are.”

“Save me! Please save me!” the voice pleads again.

“I want to,” she says. “But I can’t move either.”

She loses consciousness.

When she wakes, the voice is gone.

In that cramped, dark grave under 700 tons of concrete and steel, she is all alone.

****

The concept of purgatory isn’t familiar to most Bangladeshis.

Last Bangladesh collapse survivor speaks

Bangladesh survivor remains in hospital

Factory survivor ‘out of danger’

Bangladesh recovery efforts end

Rescue workers carry Reshma Begum, 19, to safety on Friday, May 10, a day after her discovery alive amid the wreckage of a building that had entombed her since it collapsed on April 24, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. At least 1,127 people have been confirmed dead from the garment factory building collapse.

Begum, a young female garment worker at the Rana Plaza building before the disaster, addresses the media at the Savar Combined Military Hospital in Savar area of Dhaka on Monday, May 13.

Throngs of reporters crowd around Begum as she speaks publicly for the first time on May 13 about her ordeal in Dhaka.

Begum is surrounded by media and members of the Bangladeshi military at the hospital where she is recovering in Dhaka on May 13.

A nurse helps Begum through a door as she attends a media conference at the Savar Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on May 13.

Begum rests in her hospital bed as members of the Bangladeshi military stand beside her at the Savar Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on Saturday, May 11.

Begum was found in the factory’s basement in a pool of water, according to rescue official Lt. Col. Moazzem Hossain.

Bangladeshi army workers supervise the continued rescue operation using heavy equipment to sift through the rubble on May 10 in Dhaka.

Rescuers workers administer first aid as they carry Begum from the rubble on May 10 in Dhaka.

Begum is pulled alive from the rubble by the rescue workers on May 10, after being buried for 16 days.

Begum recalled that when the collapse of the nine-story building began, she was working on the third floor. She was found in the factory’s basement.

The 19-year-old mother vowed to never again work in the country’s garment industry, where she was earning the equivalent of $60 a month.

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Reshma, a story of survival

Members of the Bangladesh army pray at the site of the collapsed Rana Plaza in Savar near Dhaka on Tuesday, May 14. The army-led effort to search for bodies has ended nearly three weeks after the nine-story building collapsed. The final death toll stands at 1,127.

Relatives of missing garment workers offer prayers in front of the rubble on May 14 in Savar.

A white board at the recovery command center near the disaster is used to track the death toll on Monday, May 13.

Heavy equipment sifts through the rubble of the garment factory building collapse on Sunday, May 12.

A woman cries holds a portrait of a missing relative believed to be trapped in the rubble of the Rana Plaza building on Saturday, May 11.

Bangladeshi garment worker Reshma Begum, a seamstress who survived 16 days trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building, rests in Savar Cantonment Hospital on the outskirts of Dhaka on May 11.

Relatives search through a long line of covered decomposing bodies to try to identify their family members on May 11.

Rescue workers retrieve Reshma from the rubble in Savar, Bangladesh, on Friday, May 10. She got rescue workers’ attention by waving an iron rod. She was found in a pool of water, which allowed her to stay alive.

An injured worker who survived the building collapse is carried by her husband to collect her wages in Savar near Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Wednesday, May 8.

Garment workers who survived the building collapse line up to collect their salaries in Savar on May 8.

Workers continue rescue and recovery operations on Tuesday, May 7, nearly two weeks after the Rana Plaza building’s collapse outside Dhaka.

Rescue workers recover a body from the rubble on May 7.

Relatives place a body in the back of a truck on May 7.

A woman attempts to identify one of the bodies kept in a schoolyard on May 7.

Members of the Bangladeshi army and firefighters carry the body of a garment worker from the scene of the building collapse in Savar, outside Dhaka, on Sunday, May 5.

A woman holds a portrait of her missing relative as she sleeps on Saturday, May 4.

Relatives attempt to identify the bodies of loved ones on May 4.

Rescue workers dig out debris from the Rana Plaza building as Bangladeshi army personnel continue the second phase of a rescue operation using heavy equipment on Friday, May 3.

A woman reacts on May 3 after identifying a body found in the rubble.

A man stands amid the destruction as rescue and army personnel continue recovery operations on May 3.

A woman holds up a picture of a missing person believed to be trapped in the rubble on May 3.

A garment worker rescued from the wreckage of the Rana Plaza building lies in a hospital in Dhaka on Thursday, May 2.

A woman weeps after identifying her daughter’s body in the rubble in Savar on May 2.

Rescue workers move debris as Bangladeshi army personnel continue the second phase of a rescue operation at the site of the collapsed building in Savar on May 2.

A woman mourns before a mass burial in Dhaka on Wednesday, May 1.

Unidentified bodies from the rubble lie on the ground as people gather for a mass burial in Dhaka on May 1.

Workers dig graves during a mass burial of unidentified garment workers on May 1.

Sohel Rana, owner of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, wears police-issued body armor and a helmet while being escorted to court in Dhaka on Tuesday, April 30. Rana was arrested near the Indian border, and protesters called for him to be hanged.

Bangladeshi troops carry the body of a garment worker out of the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building in Savar on April 30.

Clothing with Joe Fresh labels lies in the debris on April 30.

Cranes operated by Bangladeshi army personnel work on Monday, April 29.

Firefighters try to control a blaze that started while they were trying to rescue a woman with heavy equipment on April 29.

Bangladeshi army personnel begin the second phase of the rescue operation using heavy equipment on April 29.

Rescuers look for survivors on Sunday, April 28. The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society says the chances of finding anyone alive in the rubble at this date are remote.

A woman mourns on April 28 at the site of the building collapse in Savar.

Rescue workers search for survivors on April 28.

Volunteers sleep before they begin more rescue operations on April 28.

Rescue workers carry a victim’s body recovered from the rubble on April 28.

Clothes lie in the rubble on Saturday, April 27.

An arrested owner of a garment factory is escorted to an appearance at the court in Dhaka on April 27. Four people were arrested and four others are being questioned by police.

Relatives hold photos of missing and dead workers outside the factory April 27.

Two Bangladeshi women look at a board with notices posted of missing and dead workers on April 27.

Bangladeshi relatives and workers load a body onto a truck on April 27.

An excavator operated by the Bangladeshi Army removes debris on April 26.

Volunteers and rescue workers conduct rescue operations on April 26.

Rescue workers use textile as a slide to move bodies out of the rubble on April 26.

Rescue workers look for trapped garment workers on April 26.

Rescue workers stand on the rubble of the collapsed building on April 26.

Rescue workers search the rubble for victims and survivors on April 26.

A rescue worker looks for trapped workers on April 26.

Bangladeshi army personnel recover a survivor from rubble on April 26, 48 hours after the collapse.

Volunteers and rescue workers assist in rescue operations on April 26.

A physician assists a survivor after he was recovered from the rubble on April 26.

Two bodies clutch each other in the rubble on Thursday, April 25.

People rescue garment workers on April 25.

A Bangladeshi woman shows a picture of her missing daughter-in-law she believes is trapped in the collapsed building on April 25.

Bangladeshi firefighters cut a hole through concrete during rescue operations on April 25 in Savar, a suburb of Dhaka.

Volunteers and rescue workers work at the scene on April 25.

A woman appears devastated on April 25 after identifying the body of her husband killed in the building collapse.

Bangladeshi garment workers help evacuate a survivor by using a roll of fabric on April 24.

People rescue garment workers on Wednesday, April 24, after the building caved in, leaving a chaotic mass of broken concrete and twisted metal.

Relatives who lost a brother mourn outside a hospital on April 24.

Rescuers help an injured garment worker to escape from the Rana Plaza building on the outskirts of Dhaka on April 24.

Civilians help an injured garment worker on April 24. Work was proceeding slowly to avoid causing further collapse, an official said.

Rescue workers search for trapped garment workers in the Rana Plaza building on April 24.

An injured Bangladeshi lies on the hospital floor on April 24.

The injured receive treatment at a hospital on April 24.

An injured person rests in a hospital bed on April 24.

People wait anxiously on April 24 while rescuers search for survivors.

Rescuers help an injured person out of the seventh floor on April 24.

Civilians help out in rescue efforts at the collapsed building on April 24.

Hundreds watch the rescue operations on April 24.

People search for garment workers trapped under the debris on April 24.

Rescuers help an injured worker on April 24.

A body is trapped under the damaged building on April 24.

A woman is carried away from the building on April 24.

A rescue worker carries a worker to an ambulance on April 24.

Crowds gather around the collapsed building on April 24.

Rescuers bring out an injured garment worker from the building’s sixth floor.

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Photos: Building collapses in Bangladesh

Seventeen days after a building collapsed in Savar, Bangladesh, rescuers pull Reshma Begum from the rubble on May 10. More than 1,000 people have died since the nine-story garment factory building fell on April 24.

An officer of the Italian cruise line Costa Concordia, Manrico Giampedroni, is found 36 hours after the ship ran aground off the Mediterranean island of Giglio on January 13, 2012. He broke his leg as the liner rolled was was found in a half-flooded dining room, suffering from hypothermia.

A baby, her mother and her grandmother are rescued in eastern Turkey on October 25, 2011, two days after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake killed more than 600 people. Dramatic video showed 2-week-old Arza Karaduman being carried from the debris of a multiple-story building.

More than 9 miles out at sea, a 60-year-old Japanese man is found clinging to the swept-away remnants of his home on March 13, 2011. Hiromitsu Shinkawa was drifting alone for more than two days after a massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Anne Vos, 57, is rescued 24 hours after a five-story building where she worked collapsed during an earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, on February 22, 2011. She said she thought she was going to die and had called family and friends to say goodbye. She talked to international media while trapped.

After 69 harrowing days underground and a rescue mission costing up to $20 million, 33 Chilean miners are rescued on October 13, 2010. The mine collapsed on August 5, leaving the workers trapped 2,300 feet beneath the Earth’s surface.

Digging through the mud, Chinese soldiers rescue Liu Ma Shendeng from the second story of an apartment building on August 10, 2010. The 52-year-old man was trapped for 60 hours after massive mudslides buried homes and ripped others apart in China’s Gansu province. The death toll climbed to more than 1,400.

Nine-year-old Ruben van Assouw is the sole survivor of a plane crash in Tripoli, Libya, on May 14, 2010. His parents and brother are among the 103 people killed.

A man identified as Evan Muncie, 28, is found in the ruins of a marketplace, his family tells CNN, nearly a month after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010. He suffered from extreme dehydration and malnutrition, but did not appear to have significant crushing injuries, doctors said.

A 13-year-old girl is found in the Indian Ocean clinging to plane debris after the Yemenia Airways Airbus A310 from France crashed on June 1, 2009. Bahia Bakari was the sole survivor of the crash. She had been flying with her mother.

Naqsha Bibi, 40, is recovered alive from the debris of her collapsed home in Kashmir on December 12, 2005. She reportedly survived on rainwater and rotting food for more than 60 days after an earthquake struck the region on October 8.

Rashida Farooq, a 45-year-old mother of three, is rescued from her home 105 hours after it collapsed in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, on October 12, 2005. The 7.6-magnitude earthquake that hit the country killed 80,000 people.

A man identified as Jalil, 57, is rescued 13 days after an earthquake in Bam, Iran, on December 26, 2003. He was trapped under a closet and must have had access to water, an Iranian doctor told Reuters.

After being trapped for more than three days, nine miners are rescued from the Quecreek coal mine in Somerset, Pennsylvania, on July 28, 2002. They were caught in a 4-foot-high chamber 240 feet underground after breaching a wall separating their mine from an older, flooded shaft on July 24.

Genelle Guzman-McMillan is rescued from the debris of the World Trade Center 26 hours after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. She worked on the 64th floor of the north tower and was walking down a stairwell when the building collapsed. Her body was protected in an air pocket.

Shiran Franco, a 9-year-old Israeli girl, is rescued on August 21,1999, around 100 hours after a building collapsed on her during an earthquake in Cinarcik, Turkey. Her family had been on vacation. Shiran’s twin brother, father and grandparents were found dead, but her mother survived after pulling herself from the building after 30 hours.

Three infants are pulled alive from the crumbled Benito Juarez Hospital seven days after a powerful earthquake hit the Mexican capital on September 19, 1985. With more than 10,000 people killed, the newborns became known as the “miracle babies” of Mexico City.

Sixteen people are rescued 72 days after a Uruguayan Air Force plane crashed in the Andes Mountains on October 13, 1972. They endured frigid temperatures and forced themselves to eat the flesh of dead friends to sustain themselves. A dozen of the 45 passengers on board died in the crash. Others later succumbed to their injuries.

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Survivors: Stories of hope amid disaster

Marching Bangladeshis hold up portraits of relatives missing in the Rana Plaza building collapse on Tuesday, May 14. They’re demanding wages for the missing garment workers and the death sentence for the building owner. Rana Plaza collapsed on April 24 in Savar outside Dhaka; the final death toll stands at 1,127.

Family members of missing workers march on May 14. The Bangladeshi army has wrapped up its search for bodies.

Bangladeshi property tycoon Sohel Rana, center, is escorted to the High Court in Dhaka wearing police-issued body armor as protests calling for his prosecution continue, Tuesday, April 30.

Bangladeshis march on April 30, demanding capital punishment for Rana in Savar, Bangladesh, outside the capital, Dhaka.

Garment workers block a street during a protest Monday, April 29.

Bangladeshi garment workers protest in Savar on Saturday, April 27. Four people were arrested and four others are being questioned by police. The building owner has gone into hiding.

Bangladeshi army personnel and police from villagers on Friday, April 26, after protests broke out at the site of a building collapse 48 hours earlier in Savar, outside Dhaka.

Garment workers block a street in Savar, demanding the arrest of the owner of the Rana Plaza building.

Bangladeshi police fire tear gas at protesters amid the rubble of the building.

Garment workers block a street as they march to demand the arrest of the owner of the Rana Plaza building.

Plainclothes Bangladeshi police brandish sticks as they attempt to break up protests.

Firefighters work after protesters set fire to a spinning mill in Gazipur.

A man cleans up a restaurant after protesters broke its windows.

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Photos: Bangladeshis protest building collapse

Savar, once an undeveloped agricultural patch of land just outside Dhaka, has grown into a chaotic, potholed boomtown, home to a disproportionate number of the country’s 4,500 garment factories.

And Reshma quickly found a job at Rana Plaza, a gargantuan, nine-story, city-block-sized structure that housed shops, a bank and five garment workshops.

The $60 she earned a month was twice the average for garment workers in Bangladesh.

Still, the loss of her husband’s additional earnings meant she barely squeaked by.

***

“I have to find a way to chop this off,” Reshma thinks.

Her long dark hair is caught under a slab of concrete. Every time she tries to move, large chunks of hair are pulled out of her head.

She feels around in the darkness to see what she can find.

A pair of scissors.

She grabs a handful of hair.

Snip.

She is now free to explore on her hands and knees this dust-choked cocoon.

***

When the first cracks appeared in the exterior walls of Rana Plaza, the news spread among the workers in quick murmurs.

The building was built without the right permits on land that used to be a pond, officials now say. The weak foundation was threatened even further when the owner added four floors to what was once a five-story structure.

Generators hummed on the fourth floor, sometimes so loudly that workers said they could feel the structure vibrate.

But all this was revealed after the fact. After Rana Plaza pancaked on April 24. After it claimed more than 1,100 lives.

On April 23, the owner, Sohel Rana, called in an engineer to inspect the building and appease worker concerns.

The engineer, officials later said, took one look at support pillars on the third floor and was horrified. The fissures were deep — and many.

The building is unsound, he said. No one should be inside.

Rana dismissed those concerns.

“This building will stand a hundred years,” he boasted that day.

The factory owners were relieved. Political unrest in the country has meant frequent general strikes and a backlog of orders for them. They couldn’t afford a work stoppage if they intended to keep their foreign clients happy.

The industry generates more than $20 billion a year, making the country the second largest exporter of clothing after China.

So they gave the workers an ultimatum: Miss work, miss pay.

The next morning at work, Reshma and others checked out the cracks. They looked ominous.

“The managers said, ‘That’s just water damage. Go back to work,’ ” she said.

She did, taking her spot among the long rows of sewing machines at New Wave Bottoms.

An hour later, the power failed. Then came a loud rumble.

Pillars crashed. Support beams punched through windows. Dust and debris clogged the air.

The ceiling raced toward Reshma. And the floors gave way.

“I fell. And I fell,” Reshma said.

Then she blacked out.

***

Reshma crawls across the rubble with the little strength she can muster.

“Water,” she tells herself. “I have to find water.”

She’d found a little in a bottle soon after the fall.

But how long ago was that?

Hours? Days? Weeks? In this darkness, she can’t tell.

The anguished cries around her stopped a long time ago.

The man who’d begged her for help was the last voice.

Darkness. Silence. Desperation.

She drags through the detritus, her clothing ripping to shreds.

She pokes bricks with a rod. One tiny space leads to another. Each an air pocket within the sandwiched structure.

She scavenges for food. The four crackers she’d found in the ruins and rationed carefully are gone.

What she really needs is water.

She eventually finds it.

With cupped palms, she pours it down her parched throat.

“I didn’t know if it was rainwater or dirty water or what type of water,” she later says. “It didn’t matter.”

She doesn’t know it, but she’s in the flooded basement of Rana Plaza.

***

It’s 170 miles from Dinajpur to Dhaka, a trek along congested roads that can take up to 10 hours.

Reshma’s mother heard of the collapse on TV. But there was no way for her to reach her daughter.

Reshma had sold her mobile phone three days earlier to help pay rent.

Scrounging up what little change she had lying around, Zubeida boarded a bus to the capital.

She checked the morgue and the hospitals.

She showed a picture of Reshma to every rescuer she met. No one had seen her.

For the first few days, she steadfastly held on to hope. Rescuers had been pulling out survivors from the rubble by the dozens each day. More than 2,000 of them in all.

But as the days passed, the number dwindled. And with it died Zubeida’s hopes.

She wandered aimlessly around the disaster site.

Strangers brought her rice, offered her an umbrella, consoled her.

“I wanted my daughter’s body,” she said. “I wanted a leg or an arm or anything that I could take home and bury.”

Dhaka, Bangladesh (CNN) — “Save me!” a man’s voice cries out in the darkness. “Please save me!”

“I can’t see you,” she replies. “I don’t know where you are.”

“Save me! Please save me!” the voice pleads again.

“I want to,” she says. “But I can’t move either.”

She loses consciousness.

When she wakes, the voice is gone.

In that cramped, dark grave under 700 tons of concrete and steel, she is all alone.

****

The concept of purgatory isn’t familiar to most Bangladeshis.

Last Bangladesh collapse survivor speaks

Bangladesh survivor remains in hospital

Factory survivor ‘out of danger’

Bangladesh recovery efforts end

Rescue workers carry Reshma Begum, 19, to safety on Friday, May 10, a day after her discovery alive amid the wreckage of a building that had entombed her since it collapsed on April 24, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. At least 1,127 people have been confirmed dead from the garment factory building collapse.

Begum, a young female garment worker at the Rana Plaza building before the disaster, addresses the media at the Savar Combined Military Hospital in Savar area of Dhaka on Monday, May 13.

Throngs of reporters crowd around Begum as she speaks publicly for the first time on May 13 about her ordeal in Dhaka.

Begum is surrounded by media and members of the Bangladeshi military at the hospital where she is recovering in Dhaka on May 13.

A nurse helps Begum through a door as she attends a media conference at the Savar Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on May 13.

Begum rests in her hospital bed as members of the Bangladeshi military stand beside her at the Savar Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on Saturday, May 11.

Begum was found in the factory’s basement in a pool of water, according to rescue official Lt. Col. Moazzem Hossain.

Bangladeshi army workers supervise the continued rescue operation using heavy equipment to sift through the rubble on May 10 in Dhaka.

Rescuers workers administer first aid as they carry Begum from the rubble on May 10 in Dhaka.

Begum is pulled alive from the rubble by the rescue workers on May 10, after being buried for 16 days.

Begum recalled that when the collapse of the nine-story building began, she was working on the third floor. She was found in the factory’s basement.

The 19-year-old mother vowed to never again work in the country’s garment industry, where she was earning the equivalent of $60 a month.

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Reshma, a story of survival

Members of the Bangladesh army pray at the site of the collapsed Rana Plaza in Savar near Dhaka on Tuesday, May 14. The army-led effort to search for bodies has ended nearly three weeks after the nine-story building collapsed. The final death toll stands at 1,127.

Relatives of missing garment workers offer prayers in front of the rubble on May 14 in Savar.

A white board at the recovery command center near the disaster is used to track the death toll on Monday, May 13.

Heavy equipment sifts through the rubble of the garment factory building collapse on Sunday, May 12.

A woman cries holds a portrait of a missing relative believed to be trapped in the rubble of the Rana Plaza building on Saturday, May 11.

Bangladeshi garment worker Reshma Begum, a seamstress who survived 16 days trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building, rests in Savar Cantonment Hospital on the outskirts of Dhaka on May 11.

Relatives search through a long line of covered decomposing bodies to try to identify their family members on May 11.

Rescue workers retrieve Reshma from the rubble in Savar, Bangladesh, on Friday, May 10. She got rescue workers’ attention by waving an iron rod. She was found in a pool of water, which allowed her to stay alive.

An injured worker who survived the building collapse is carried by her husband to collect her wages in Savar near Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Wednesday, May 8.

Garment workers who survived the building collapse line up to collect their salaries in Savar on May 8.

Workers continue rescue and recovery operations on Tuesday, May 7, nearly two weeks after the Rana Plaza building’s collapse outside Dhaka.

Rescue workers recover a body from the rubble on May 7.

Relatives place a body in the back of a truck on May 7.

A woman attempts to identify one of the bodies kept in a schoolyard on May 7.

Members of the Bangladeshi army and firefighters carry the body of a garment worker from the scene of the building collapse in Savar, outside Dhaka, on Sunday, May 5.

A woman holds a portrait of her missing relative as she sleeps on Saturday, May 4.

Relatives attempt to identify the bodies of loved ones on May 4.

Rescue workers dig out debris from the Rana Plaza building as Bangladeshi army personnel continue the second phase of a rescue operation using heavy equipment on Friday, May 3.

A woman reacts on May 3 after identifying a body found in the rubble.

A man stands amid the destruction as rescue and army personnel continue recovery operations on May 3.

A woman holds up a picture of a missing person believed to be trapped in the rubble on May 3.

A garment worker rescued from the wreckage of the Rana Plaza building lies in a hospital in Dhaka on Thursday, May 2.

A woman weeps after identifying her daughter’s body in the rubble in Savar on May 2.

Rescue workers move debris as Bangladeshi army personnel continue the second phase of a rescue operation at the site of the collapsed building in Savar on May 2.

A woman mourns before a mass burial in Dhaka on Wednesday, May 1.

Unidentified bodies from the rubble lie on the ground as people gather for a mass burial in Dhaka on May 1.

Workers dig graves during a mass burial of unidentified garment workers on May 1.

Sohel Rana, owner of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, wears police-issued body armor and a helmet while being escorted to court in Dhaka on Tuesday, April 30. Rana was arrested near the Indian border, and protesters called for him to be hanged.

Bangladeshi troops carry the body of a garment worker out of the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building in Savar on April 30.

Clothing with Joe Fresh labels lies in the debris on April 30.

Cranes operated by Bangladeshi army personnel work on Monday, April 29.

Firefighters try to control a blaze that started while they were trying to rescue a woman with heavy equipment on April 29.

Bangladeshi army personnel begin the second phase of the rescue operation using heavy equipment on April 29.

Rescuers look for survivors on Sunday, April 28. The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society says the chances of finding anyone alive in the rubble at this date are remote.

A woman mourns on April 28 at the site of the building collapse in Savar.

Rescue workers search for survivors on April 28.

Volunteers sleep before they begin more rescue operations on April 28.

Rescue workers carry a victim’s body recovered from the rubble on April 28.

Clothes lie in the rubble on Saturday, April 27.

An arrested owner of a garment factory is escorted to an appearance at the court in Dhaka on April 27. Four people were arrested and four others are being questioned by police.

Relatives hold photos of missing and dead workers outside the factory April 27.

Two Bangladeshi women look at a board with notices posted of missing and dead workers on April 27.

Bangladeshi relatives and workers load a body onto a truck on April 27.

An excavator operated by the Bangladeshi Army removes debris on April 26.

Volunteers and rescue workers conduct rescue operations on April 26.

Rescue workers use textile as a slide to move bodies out of the rubble on April 26.

Rescue workers look for trapped garment workers on April 26.

Rescue workers stand on the rubble of the collapsed building on April 26.

Rescue workers search the rubble for victims and survivors on April 26.

A rescue worker looks for trapped workers on April 26.

Bangladeshi army personnel recover a survivor from rubble on April 26, 48 hours after the collapse.

Volunteers and rescue workers assist in rescue operations on April 26.

A physician assists a survivor after he was recovered from the rubble on April 26.

Two bodies clutch each other in the rubble on Thursday, April 25.

People rescue garment workers on April 25.

A Bangladeshi woman shows a picture of her missing daughter-in-law she believes is trapped in the collapsed building on April 25.

Bangladeshi firefighters cut a hole through concrete during rescue operations on April 25 in Savar, a suburb of Dhaka.

Volunteers and rescue workers work at the scene on April 25.

A woman appears devastated on April 25 after identifying the body of her husband killed in the building collapse.

Bangladeshi garment workers help evacuate a survivor by using a roll of fabric on April 24.

People rescue garment workers on Wednesday, April 24, after the building caved in, leaving a chaotic mass of broken concrete and twisted metal.

Relatives who lost a brother mourn outside a hospital on April 24.

Rescuers help an injured garment worker to escape from the Rana Plaza building on the outskirts of Dhaka on April 24.

Civilians help an injured garment worker on April 24. Work was proceeding slowly to avoid causing further collapse, an official said.

Rescue workers search for trapped garment workers in the Rana Plaza building on April 24.

An injured Bangladeshi lies on the hospital floor on April 24.

The injured receive treatment at a hospital on April 24.

An injured person rests in a hospital bed on April 24.

People wait anxiously on April 24 while rescuers search for survivors.

Rescuers help an injured person out of the seventh floor on April 24.

Civilians help out in rescue efforts at the collapsed building on April 24.

Hundreds watch the rescue operations on April 24.

People search for garment workers trapped under the debris on April 24.

Rescuers help an injured worker on April 24.

A body is trapped under the damaged building on April 24.

A woman is carried away from the building on April 24.

A rescue worker carries a worker to an ambulance on April 24.

Crowds gather around the collapsed building on April 24.

Rescuers bring out an injured garment worker from the building’s sixth floor.

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Photos: Building collapses in Bangladesh

Seventeen days after a building collapsed in Savar, Bangladesh, rescuers pull Reshma Begum from the rubble on May 10. More than 1,000 people have died since the nine-story garment factory building fell on April 24.

An officer of the Italian cruise line Costa Concordia, Manrico Giampedroni, is found 36 hours after the ship ran aground off the Mediterranean island of Giglio on January 13, 2012. He broke his leg as the liner rolled was was found in a half-flooded dining room, suffering from hypothermia.

A baby, her mother and her grandmother are rescued in eastern Turkey on October 25, 2011, two days after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake killed more than 600 people. Dramatic video showed 2-week-old Arza Karaduman being carried from the debris of a multiple-story building.

More than 9 miles out at sea, a 60-year-old Japanese man is found clinging to the swept-away remnants of his home on March 13, 2011. Hiromitsu Shinkawa was drifting alone for more than two days after a massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Anne Vos, 57, is rescued 24 hours after a five-story building where she worked collapsed during an earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, on February 22, 2011. She said she thought she was going to die and had called family and friends to say goodbye. She talked to international media while trapped.

After 69 harrowing days underground and a rescue mission costing up to $20 million, 33 Chilean miners are rescued on October 13, 2010. The mine collapsed on August 5, leaving the workers trapped 2,300 feet beneath the Earth’s surface.

Digging through the mud, Chinese soldiers rescue Liu Ma Shendeng from the second story of an apartment building on August 10, 2010. The 52-year-old man was trapped for 60 hours after massive mudslides buried homes and ripped others apart in China’s Gansu province. The death toll climbed to more than 1,400.

Nine-year-old Ruben van Assouw is the sole survivor of a plane crash in Tripoli, Libya, on May 14, 2010. His parents and brother are among the 103 people killed.

A man identified as Evan Muncie, 28, is found in the ruins of a marketplace, his family tells CNN, nearly a month after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010. He suffered from extreme dehydration and malnutrition, but did not appear to have significant crushing injuries, doctors said.

A 13-year-old girl is found in the Indian Ocean clinging to plane debris after the Yemenia Airways Airbus A310 from France crashed on June 1, 2009. Bahia Bakari was the sole survivor of the crash. She had been flying with her mother.

Naqsha Bibi, 40, is recovered alive from the debris of her collapsed home in Kashmir on December 12, 2005. She reportedly survived on rainwater and rotting food for more than 60 days after an earthquake struck the region on October 8.

Rashida Farooq, a 45-year-old mother of three, is rescued from her home 105 hours after it collapsed in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, on October 12, 2005. The 7.6-magnitude earthquake that hit the country killed 80,000 people.

A man identified as Jalil, 57, is rescued 13 days after an earthquake in Bam, Iran, on December 26, 2003. He was trapped under a closet and must have had access to water, an Iranian doctor told Reuters.

After being trapped for more than three days, nine miners are rescued from the Quecreek coal mine in Somerset, Pennsylvania, on July 28, 2002. They were caught in a 4-foot-high chamber 240 feet underground after breaching a wall separating their mine from an older, flooded shaft on July 24.

Genelle Guzman-McMillan is rescued from the debris of the World Trade Center 26 hours after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. She worked on the 64th floor of the north tower and was walking down a stairwell when the building collapsed. Her body was protected in an air pocket.

Shiran Franco, a 9-year-old Israeli girl, is rescued on August 21,1999, around 100 hours after a building collapsed on her during an earthquake in Cinarcik, Turkey. Her family had been on vacation. Shiran’s twin brother, father and grandparents were found dead, but her mother survived after pulling herself from the building after 30 hours.

Three infants are pulled alive from the crumbled Benito Juarez Hospital seven days after a powerful earthquake hit the Mexican capital on September 19, 1985. With more than 10,000 people killed, the newborns became known as the “miracle babies” of Mexico City.

Sixteen people are rescued 72 days after a Uruguayan Air Force plane crashed in the Andes Mountains on October 13, 1972. They endured frigid temperatures and forced themselves to eat the flesh of dead friends to sustain themselves. A dozen of the 45 passengers on board died in the crash. Others later succumbed to their injuries.

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Survivors: Stories of hope amid disaster

Marching Bangladeshis hold up portraits of relatives missing in the Rana Plaza building collapse on Tuesday, May 14. They’re demanding wages for the missing garment workers and the death sentence for the building owner. Rana Plaza collapsed on April 24 in Savar outside Dhaka; the final death toll stands at 1,127.

Family members of missing workers march on May 14. The Bangladeshi army has wrapped up its search for bodies.

Bangladeshi property tycoon Sohel Rana, center, is escorted to the High Court in Dhaka wearing police-issued body armor as protests calling for his prosecution continue, Tuesday, April 30.

Bangladeshis march on April 30, demanding capital punishment for Rana in Savar, Bangladesh, outside the capital, Dhaka.

Garment workers block a street during a protest Monday, April 29.

Bangladeshi garment workers protest in Savar on Saturday, April 27. Four people were arrested and four others are being questioned by police. The building owner has gone into hiding.

Bangladeshi army personnel and police from villagers on Friday, April 26, after protests broke out at the site of a building collapse 48 hours earlier in Savar, outside Dhaka.

Garment workers block a street in Savar, demanding the arrest of the owner of the Rana Plaza building.

Bangladeshi police fire tear gas at protesters amid the rubble of the building.

Garment workers block a street as they march to demand the arrest of the owner of the Rana Plaza building.

Plainclothes Bangladeshi police brandish sticks as they attempt to break up protests.

Firefighters work after protesters set fire to a spinning mill in Gazipur.

A man cleans up a restaurant after protesters broke its windows.

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Photos: Bangladeshis protest building collapse

Savar, once an undeveloped agricultural patch of land just outside Dhaka, has grown into a chaotic, potholed boomtown, home to a disproportionate number of the country’s 4,500 garment factories.

And Reshma quickly found a job at Rana Plaza, a gargantuan, nine-story, city-block-sized structure that housed shops, a bank and five garment workshops.

The $60 she earned a month was twice the average for garment workers in Bangladesh.

Still, the loss of her husband’s additional earnings meant she barely squeaked by.

***

“I have to find a way to chop this off,” Reshma thinks.

Her long dark hair is caught under a slab of concrete. Every time she tries to move, large chunks of hair are pulled out of her head.

She feels around in the darkness to see what she can find.

A pair of scissors.

She grabs a handful of hair.

Snip.

She is now free to explore on her hands and knees this dust-choked cocoon.

***

When the first cracks appeared in the exterior walls of Rana Plaza, the news spread among the workers in quick murmurs.

The building was built without the right permits on land that used to be a pond, officials now say. The weak foundation was threatened even further when the owner added four floors to what was once a five-story structure.

Generators hummed on the fourth floor, sometimes so loudly that workers said they could feel the structure vibrate.

But all this was revealed after the fact. After Rana Plaza pancaked on April 24. After it claimed more than 1,100 lives.

On April 23, the owner, Sohel Rana, called in an engineer to inspect the building and appease worker concerns.

The engineer, officials later said, took one look at support pillars on the third floor and was horrified. The fissures were deep — and many.

The building is unsound, he said. No one should be inside.

Rana dismissed those concerns.

“This building will stand a hundred years,” he boasted that day.

The factory owners were relieved. Political unrest in the country has meant frequent general strikes and a backlog of orders for them. They couldn’t afford a work stoppage if they intended to keep their foreign clients happy.

The industry generates more than $20 billion a year, making the country the second largest exporter of clothing after China.

So they gave the workers an ultimatum: Miss work, miss pay.

The next morning at work, Reshma and others checked out the cracks. They looked ominous.

“The managers said, ‘That’s just water damage. Go back to work,’ ” she said.

She did, taking her spot among the long rows of sewing machines at New Wave Bottoms.

An hour later, the power failed. Then came a loud rumble.

Pillars crashed. Support beams punched through windows. Dust and debris clogged the air.

The ceiling raced toward Reshma. And the floors gave way.

“I fell. And I fell,” Reshma said.

Then she blacked out.

***

Reshma crawls across the rubble with the little strength she can muster.

“Water,” she tells herself. “I have to find water.”

She’d found a little in a bottle soon after the fall.

But how long ago was that?

Hours? Days? Weeks? In this darkness, she can’t tell.

The anguished cries around her stopped a long time ago.

The man who’d begged her for help was the last voice.

Darkness. Silence. Desperation.

She drags through the detritus, her clothing ripping to shreds.

She pokes bricks with a rod. One tiny space leads to another. Each an air pocket within the sandwiched structure.

She scavenges for food. The four crackers she’d found in the ruins and rationed carefully are gone.

What she really needs is water.

She eventually finds it.

With cupped palms, she pours it down her parched throat.

“I didn’t know if it was rainwater or dirty water or what type of water,” she later says. “It didn’t matter.”

She doesn’t know it, but she’s in the flooded basement of Rana Plaza.

***

It’s 170 miles from Dinajpur to Dhaka, a trek along congested roads that can take up to 10 hours.

Reshma’s mother heard of the collapse on TV. But there was no way for her to reach her daughter.

Reshma had sold her mobile phone three days earlier to help pay rent.

Scrounging up what little change she had lying around, Zubeida boarded a bus to the capital.

She checked the morgue and the hospitals.

She showed a picture of Reshma to every rescuer she met. No one had seen her.

For the first few days, she steadfastly held on to hope. Rescuers had been pulling out survivors from the rubble by the dozens each day. More than 2,000 of them in all.

But as the days passed, the number dwindled. And with it died Zubeida’s hopes.

She wandered aimlessly around the disaster site.

Strangers brought her rice, offered her an umbrella, consoled her.

“I wanted my daughter’s body,” she said. “I wanted a leg or an arm or anything that I could take home and bury.”