Dhaka-Holding a photograph of her son in one hand and a bone in another, Mehera stands silently surrounded by rubble at the site which once housed Bangladesh's ill-fated Rana Plaza factory complex.
Her son Babu Mia, 23, was on shift in one of the complex's five garment factories when it collapsed on the morning of April 24, 2013, leaving more than 1,100 people dead in one of the world's worst industrial disasters.
The collapse triggered international outrage and put pressure on European and US brands who had placed orders to improve the woeful pay and conditions at Bangladesh's 4,500 garment factories.
Two years on, nearly $25 million in compensation has been paid out to survivors and relatives of the dead.
But Mehera, a widow who uses only one name, is one of hundreds of family members who remain in limbo -- knowing in her heart that her son is gone for good, but without a body to mourn.
Babu, who was the family's sole breadwinner, is one of around 130 workers who are presumed to have died when the flimsy building imploded but whose bodies have never been recovered.
- 'Here's his finger' -
"I'm convinced these are his bones," said 55-year-old Mehera as she pointed to remains found amid the tangle of concrete.
"When I touched this fabric and this bone, my heart told me it was my son's. He was wearing his favourite trousers that day," added Mehera as she cradled a bone fragment embedded with tiny strands of black cloth.
"And here's his finger," she said, picking up another small bone.
Dozens of bones have been found in the last two years, some of which lie in piles and others left to poke out from the rubble, bleached by the sun.
The sporadic discovery of remains has fuelled the anger of relatives who say authorities were too quick to send in the bulldozers to shovel up most of the debris.
By the time the three-week rescue operation ended, a total of 1,129 bodies had been recovered.
AFP
