Bangladesh court orders arrest of 24 people for Rana Plaza factory collapse

A judicial magistrate's court in Bangladesh has ordered the arrest of 24 people and the seizure of their assets after they failed to turn up to face murder charges over the collapse of a garment factory that killed more than 1,100 people in 2013.

According to the Daily Star, senior judicial magistrate Mohammad Al Amin issued warrants against the accused fugitives for the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory compound.

The incident has been described as one of the world's worst industrial disasters.

The police have been asked to report on the arrest of the fugitives by January 27, 2016.

Among the 41 who have been charged with murder is Sohel Rana, the owner of the nine-storey complex on the outskirts of Dhaka which collapsed on April 24, 2013, at the start of the working day. At least 1,138 people are known to have died in the tragedy, and rescue workers struggled for weeks to retrieve bodies from the debris.

More than 2,000 people were injured, and many of them lost their limbs.