Bangladesh rescuers find 45 alive, death toll has risen to 272

Bangladeshi rescuers have hauled another 45 people alive from the rubble of a collapsed complex of housing garment factories, although the death toll has risen to 272, officials said Friday.

"We have rescued 45 people today including 41 we found in one place alive," national fire department chief Ahmed Ali told AFP two days after the disaster, adding that the 41 had been on the fourth floor of the eight-storey block.

The 41 people were found at 2:30 am (2030 GMT Thursday) and the other four elsewhere in the wreckage at 7:00 am (0100 GMT Friday), he said.

"We have located another 20-25 people in another place but it's proving very difficult to reach them. But they are still alive," Ali added.

As the desperate search for survivors continued, more bodies were also being pulled out of the collapsed Rana Plaza complex on the outskirts of Dhaka, whose garment factories supplied a number of Western brands.

The death toll has risen to 272, said police sub-inspector Wali Asraf early Friday.

To wild applause from thousands of relatives gathered at the scene, an army spokesman announced late on Thursday that 40 survivors had been discovered together in one room. But that figure was later revised to 24.