Munir Uz Zaman / AFP - Getty Images

Bangladeshi volunteers and rescue workers search for survivors at the scene of an eight-story building collapse in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh on Thursday.

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Survivors from a building that collapsed in Bangladesh killing more than 250 mainly women workers described hearing a deafening crack before the complex housing factories supplying Western clothes retailers crashed down in a matter of seconds.

Dozens more victims were thought to be still trapped in the rubble after the disaster, which comes five months after a factory fire killed 112 people. The tragedy could further hurt Bangladesh's reputation as a source of low-cost goods for European and North American firms.

Local residents helped pull survivors from the twisted wreckage of the eight-story Rana Plaza building which collapsed on Wednesday in Savar, 20 miles outside the capital Dhaka. More than 1,000 people were injured.

Relatives identified their dead among rows of corpses.

"An unspecified number of victims are still trapped," said Mizanur Rahman, a rescue worker with the fire brigade, as he clambered over the wreckage. "We can't be certain of getting them all out alive. We are losing a bit of hope."

Dhaka's district police chief Habibur Rahman said the death toll could rise further.

"I was at work on the third floor, and then suddenly I heard a deafening sound, but couldn't understand what was happening," said factory worker Zohra Begum. "I ran and was hit by something on my head."

The government declared a national day of mourning and flags were flown half-staff at all official buildings.

Dhaka city development authority had filed a case against the building's owner for faulty construction, police chief Rahman said. It filed another case against the owner and the five garments factories for causing unlawful death.

Images: Desperate search for survivors

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) President Mohammad Atiqul Islam said there were 3,122 workers in the factories on Wednesday. He said there had been indications from local officials that cracks had been found in the building the day before.

"We asked the garment owners to keep it closed," Islam said.

Rana Plaza's owner had told proprietors of the building's five garment factories that the cracks were not dangerous, Islam added. "After getting the green signal from the plaza owner all the garment factories opened," he said.

However, police official Mohammad Asaduzzaman said factory owners appeared to have ignored a warning not to allow their workers into the building after a crack was detected on Tuesday.

More than 1,000 textile workers besieged the BGMEA offices on Thursday, pelting it with stones and clashing with riot police, TV channels showed. The workers demanded all garment factories be shut and the owners harshly punished for accidents.

Mohammad Mosharraf, who was rescued on Thursday after 26 hours, said he had been hit on the head by something heavy and knocked unconscious when the building came down.

"When I regain my sense I found another four colleagues are also trapped under the debris of the building," he told Reuters. "We desperately tried to shout for someone to rescue us. Initially we didn't receive any response, but we moved to another part of the floor and found some light and heard voices."

Munir Uz Zaman / AFP - Getty Images

A Bangladeshi woman reacts after identifying the body of her husband at scene of a collapsed building in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh on Thursday.

The Rana Plaza building collapse follows a fire at the Tazreen Fashion factory on the outskirts of Dhaka that killed 112 people in November and another incident at a factory in January in which seven people died, compounding concerns about worker safety and low wages in Bangladesh.

U.K. clothing retailer Primark confirmed that one of its suppliers occupied the second floor of the building.

Canada's Loblaw, a unit of food processing and distribution firm George Weston Ltd, also confirmed a connection with the building. It said one factory made a small number of "Joe Fresh" apparel items for the company.

Documents including order sheets and cutting plans obtained by Reuters appeared to show that other major clothing brands such as Spain's Mango and Benetton had used suppliers in the building in the last year. A Benetton spokesman said none of the factories were suppliers to the company.

About 3.6 million people work in Bangladesh's garment industry, making it the world's second-largest apparel exporter.

Wal-Mart said on Wednesday it had not determined whether a factory in the building that collapsed was producing goods for the company.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde, seen in Frankfurt on Wednesday prior to the rain on her Paris apartment.

PARIS - French police searched the Paris apartment of International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde on Wednesday as part of an investigation into misuse of public funds in her previous role as finance minister of France.

The probe centers on her awarding of a 2008 arbitration payment to a businessman supporter of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, her lawyer said.

Lagarde, who was serving in Sarkozy's government at the time, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in ending a judicial battle against billionaire Bernard Tapie and instead opting for arbitration.

Investigating magistrates suspect her of complicity in embezzling public funds after she overruled objections from advisers to proceeding with the controversial $367 million to Tapie.

"This search will help uncover the truth, which will contribute to exonerating my client from any criminal wrongdoing," Lagarde's lawyer, Yves Repiquet, told Reuters.

It was conducted a day after France's budget minister resigned after being targeted in a tax fraud inquiry.

Socialist President Francois Hollande came to power last May vowing to crack down on the cozy relationships between politicians and businessmen he said were rife under Sarkozy.

Lagarde was in Frankfurt and not in her Paris flat at the time of the search, a spokesman for the IMF chief said.

Grigory Dukor / Reuters

Russia's Central Bank Governor Sergei Ignatyev has generally kept a low profile during his 11-year tenure.

MOSCOW - Nearly $50 billion was transferred out of Russia illegally in 2012 and more than half this sum may have been controlled by a single group of people, the country's central bank said on Wednesday. 

Sergei Ignatyev, chairman of the Bank of Russia, was citing the findings of a study that the bank said it would publish later on Wednesday. 

"You get the impression that they (half the transfers) are all controlled by one well-organized group of people," Sergei Ignatyev, chairman of the Bank of Russia, told the Vedomosti daily in an interview.

Ignatyev, who is due to retire in June, declined to identify the group in response to a reporter's question at the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, where he was due to deliver an address.

But the central bank analysis appears to be an indictment of President Vladimir Putin's brand of state capitalism, which critics say has allowed official corruption to flourish on a huge scale.

'Bribes and kickbacks'
It also marks an unusually strong intervention by Ignatyev, who during his 11-year tenure has kept a generally low profile, seeking to preserve the central bank's policy autonomy without pushing for full, Western-style independence from politics.

Putin is due to nominate a successor to him in March, but no front runner has yet emerged.

The central bank study found that $49 billion, or around 2.5 percent of gross domestic product, was spirited illegally out of Russia last year.

"It can be payment for narcotics ... 'grey' imports ... bribes and kickbacks to officials (and) managers making large-scale purchases," Ignatyev told Vedomosti. "It can be schemes to avoid tax."

Of the total, the central bank estimates that $14 billion is related to trade operations, with the remainder made up of $35.1 billion in "dubious" capital transfers.

The latter represents 60 percent of last year's officially reported total net capital outflows of $56.8 billion, according to the study. 

Related:

Full Russia coverage from NBC News

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter, CEO of Raiffeisen Gammesfeld eG bank, serves a customer at the counter of the bank in Gammesfeld, Baden-Wuerttemberg. Things do not seem to have changed much since the bank was founded in 1890.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter works with an old adding machine. The bank is not connected to a database system, there are no cash machines and its customer base consists only of residents of the town of Gammesfeld, which has a population of around 510.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Fritz Vogt, 82, who used to run the bank and still helps out with paperwork, writes into a savings book. During his time at the bank he rejected the idea of IT, preferring his trusty fountain pen, and now eyes the 'new' computer with its floppy disks warily.

By Victoria Bryan, Reuters

Peter Breiter, 41, is an unusual banker. Not for him the big bonuses, complicated financial instruments and multi-million deals of Wall Street lore.

He is happy instead writing transaction slips out by hand for the 500 inhabitants of the tiny southern German village of Gammesfeld.

The Raiffeisen Gammesfeld eG cooperative bank is one of the country's 10 smallest banks by deposits and is the only one to be run by just one member of staff.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter rolls euro coins in paper.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter mops the floor in the waiting room of the bank.

A typical day's work for Breiter involves providing villagers with cash for their day-to-day needs and arranging small loans for local businesses. Not to mention cleaning the one-story building that houses the bank, which is 200 meters from his own front door.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter holds the floppy disks he uses now that the bank has a computer.

Moving from a bigger bank, where it was all "sell, sell, sell," Gammesfeld-born Breiter says taking up this job in 2008 was the best decision he ever made.

The advertisement required someone to work by hand, without computers. The typewriter and the adding machine bear the signs of constant use, although Breiter, in his standard work outfit of jeans and a sweater, does now have a computer.

"It's so much fun," Breiter, a keen mathematician, says as he deals with a steady stream of lunchtime customers. He knows his customers by name and regularly offers advice on jobs, relationship and money woes.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter, right, welcomes customer Mandes Rueger, 30, at the counter of the bank. Rueger, an insurance salesman, comes in around twice a week to use the bank.

Raiffeisen Gammesfeld restricts its business to traditional retail banking --  no credit cards, shares, funds or even online banking. Annual profits are stable at around 40,000 euros ($54,000) and the biggest loan it ever made was for 650,000 euros ($875,000).

Breiter said the financial crisis prompted interest in his bank from all over Germany: "One person rang up five times asking for a 4 million euro loan, but I had to refuse because he wasn't from Gammesfeld!" Read the full story.

Photographer's blog: Lisi Niesner describes her visit to Germany's one-man bank

EDITOR'S NOTE: Images taken on Jan. 29, 2013 and made available to NBC News today.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

A Raiffeisen Gammesfeld eG bank stamp.

Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

An employee holds a Guerlain's perfume bottle at the KaDeWe department store in Berlin in this April 15, 2008 file photo.

PARIS - Luxury perfume brands fear the European Union is about to introduce measures that could cripple the $25 billion global industry in the name of protecting consumers against allergies.

New laws could severely curb or ban natural ingredients used in vintage best-sellers and put some perfume makers out of business.

But Brussels' proposed legislation - a draft will be unveiled early next year - is also causing a stir for another reason. It sheds light on the best-kept secret in the trade: many big brands have been tweaking their formulas for years.

"It is a taboo in the industry. People are scared to say anything about it," says Fflur Roberts, head of luxury goods at market research company Euromonitor.

Until now, changes to perfume formulas have come as a result of increasingly severe restrictions imposed by the industry's self-regulatory body, the International Fragrance Association (IFRA), though ingredient shortages or cost-cutting have also played a part.

A new Europe-wide law would force even more severe tweaks.

The brands most affected will be those which have been in the perfume industry for more than half a century, such as Dior, Chanel and Guerlain. All those fragrances use many natural ingredients and were created before scientists started looking into perfumes' potential health hazards. Chanel's No.5, one of the world's best-selling perfumes and named after its creator's fifth trial, was created in 1921.

Chanel declined to comment to Reuters on whether it has ever changed the formula of its world-famous perfume, as did Guerlain, Dior and luxury brand Hermes, which all make high-end perfumes using natural ingredients.

Most luxury perfume names do not want to disclose the fact that they have had to make tweaks to their scents for fear they could lose customers or damage their carefully nurtured luxury brand.

If new, even stricter rules are adopted, hundreds of perfumes would have to be reformulated with synthetic allergen-free contents. That, many in the industry fear, could threaten their business.

"If this law goes ahead I am finished, as my perfumes are all filled with these ingredients," said Frederic Malle, who owns high-end perfume company Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle. The impact on luxury perfume brands as a whole would, he said, be "like an atomic explosion and we would not have the means to rebuild ourselves."

Most fine perfumes are composed of a mix of natural ingredients and synthetic molecules. Perfumes are made up of a concentrate that is diluted with alcohol, usually from beetroots.

Paulo Whitaker / Reuters

An employee creates a fragrance in a laboratory in Granja Viana, 25 miles south of Sao Paulo in this August 2, 2012 file photo.

Since its creation in 1973, the IFRA, which is financed by scent makers such as Givaudan, New York-listed International Flavors & Fragrances, and Germany's Symrise, has restricted natural ingredients for a range of health reasons, from worries about allergic reactions to cancer concerns.

Many traditional essences that perfume creators consider core to their craft have been blacklisted in recent decades. Birch tar oil was removed from Guerlain's Shalimar several decades ago because it was thought to be a cancer risk. Clove oil and rose oil, which contain a component called eugenol, and lavender, which contains linalool, may only be used in limited quantities in case of allergies.

An estimated 5 million to 15 million people, or 1 to 3 percent of the EU population, who are allergic or potentially allergic to natural ingredients contained in fine perfumes, according to a report published in July by the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS), an advisory body for the European Commission.

Europe is not the only region to look more closely at the impact of fragrance. Earlier this year Republican lawmaker Michele Peckham from New Hampshire proposed a bill in the state House to ban state employees who have contact with members of the public from wearing strong fragrances.

The bill did not pass, but other lawmakers are considering reintroducing similar legislation. Meanwhile the city of Portland in Oregon has asked public workers and citizens visiting and using public spaces to limit their use of scented products.

Some hospitals in the U.S. have also introduced bans on using perfumes.

The SCCS, whose recommendations Reuters was first to report in October, recommended that 12 substances used in hundreds of perfumes on the market today be limited to 0.01 percent of the finished product, a level perfume makers say is unworkable. The SCCS has proposed a total ban on tree moss and oakmoss, which scientists say are strong allergens.

If the recommendations are enforced by the European Commission, IFRA estimates some 9,000 perfume formulas would have to be changed.

Patrick Saint-Yves, president of the French Society of Perfume Creators (SFP), is furious about the recommendation.

"I simply find that there is a huge contradiction," Saint-Yves says. "We encourage the use of many essential oils such as lavender in aromatherapy for massages, but we want to ban it in perfumes. Shops continue to sell alcohol and cigarettes which do much more harm."

Part of the problem is the secrecy surrounding perfumes. Most perfume brands are reluctant to label their products. Unlike artists and writers, perfume creators have no intellectual property rights to the fragrances they compose for big brands, and so perfume brands fight hard to keep their formulas hidden.

LVMH, which owns Dior and Guerlain, and Chanel are lobbying Brussels to protect their perfumes, many of which were created decades ago.

"It is essential to preserve Europe's olfactory cultural heritage," LVMH told Reuters in an emailed statement.

Givaudan and L'Oreal declined to comment for this Reuters report.

Ignoring the recommendations altogether would be difficult. The European Consumer Group (BEUC) has welcomed the SCCS's report as a "thorough and evidence-based study" that is a starting point for the decisions ahead. 

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Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters

A worker processes wool used to make traditional footwear at a factory in Smilovichi, Belarus, Dec. 5.

Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters

A worker processes semi-finished valenki, in Smilovichi, Belarus.

Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters

A worker moves a cart of semi-finished valenki at a factory in Smilovichi, Belarus, Dec. 5.

Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters

Workers sort semi-finished valenki at a factory in the village of Smilovichi, Dec. 5.

Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters

A worker processes semi-finished valenki, Dec. 5.

Valenki, a traditional Russian felt boot specifically designed for extreme frost typical of severe winter, remain popular in rural areas. Established in 1928, a factory in village of Smilovichi, 22 miles east of Minsk, still produces 17,000 pairs of boots a month, according to its director.  If you love these boots, there is a valenki museum in Vyshny Volochok, Russia.

Charlene Gubash, NBC News

Mohamed Sarwat, who works at the Mecca Market in Ismailia, Egypt, shows off the Twinkies that the shop sells.

ISMAILIA, Egypt -- Worried about the fate of those moist yellow sponge cakes with a creamy white center? Look no further. Twinkies still reign supreme in the land of pharaohs.

On Friday, the iconic manufacturer of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread closed 33 factories and announced plans to lay off 18,500 workers over an acrimonious labor dispute. Hostess was headed to U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York on Wednesday, seeking permission to liquidate its business.

But in Egypt – and most other Arab countries – Twinkies are popular treats that sell themselves.

Twinkies and Ho Hos are so popular that the local producer, Edita, no longer bothers to advertise and the treats still bring in a sweet 47 percent of the company's profit. Edita markets to the Arab Gulf, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon and is expanding to other countries.

Hostess, union mediation fails liquidation; liquidation next?

"It is our top seller. Everybody buys it!" said Mohamed Sarwat, who works at the Mecca Market in Ismailia, Egypt, where Twinkies have pride of place behind the counter.

Twinkies are considered better than most of the locally produced packaged cakes and have the cachet of being a real American product made with high-quality imported ingredients. They taste like the real deal, if a little less spongy than their U.S. counterparts. That can't be said for fudgy tasting Boreos, a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time Egyptian knock-off of Oreos.

Twinkies are a favorite of school children in Egypt. The cushiony confections sell for an affordable 7 cents in school cafeterias and for 14 cents in stores. Imported snacks of a similar kind can run up to five times as much.

The local producer of Twinkies is suffering none of the ills faced by Hostess in the U.S. and its production is continuing as planned, a source close to Edita told NBC News. Since the ingredients for Twinkies are imported from outside the U.S. and are produced locally, Egyptian addicts should be able to look forward to that little foil-wrapped piece of comfort well into the future.

There is also hope beyond the Middle East. Mexican company Grupo Bimbo may be angling to resurrect Twinkies from the ashes.

Mexican company Bimbo may be eyeing Twinkies

Grupo Bimbo reportedly had an eye on Hostess for almost a decade, since they saw it as a key ingredient to North American expansion. Additionally, economists say high sugar prices tied to U.S. trade tariffs were a big reason Hostess was struggling. Grupo Bimbo, with its access to lower-priced sugar in Mexico, could be a lifeline.

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All images by Faisal Mahmood / Reuters

Workers at Pakistan's lone beer maker, Murree Brewery, line up empty beer bottles at the factory in Rawalpindi, Nov. 10, 2012.

Faisal Mahmood, Reuters — Murree Brewery, established in 1860 by British colonial rulers to supply beer to their troops, is desperately looking for business overseas to hedge against its uncertain domestic market. Prohibition was imposed in Pakistan in 1977. Non-Muslims and foreigners must obtain a government permit to purchase alcohol at designated retailers which are mainly upscale hotels.

See more beer related images on PhotoBlog

EDITOR’S NOTE: Images made available to NBC News on Nov. 15.

An employee prepares barley at the Murree Brewery in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Nov. 10.

A Murree Brewery employee checks barrels at the factory in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Nov. 10.

A Murree Brewery guard closes the factory's main gate in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Nov. 10.

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Nikolas Giakoumidis/AP

A protester, not seen, throws a coffee at German consul Wolfgang Hoelscher-Obermaier, with the blue shirt, in Thessaloniki Thursday.

ATHENS - Public sector workers stormed a building where Greek and German officials were meeting in the northern city of Thessaloniki Thursday and pelted a German diplomat with water bottles in a protest over austerity measures.

Riot police used teargas and truncheons to break up a crowd of 250 city employees outside the building and formed a shield around German Consul Wolfgang Hoelscher-Obermaier as he entered.

Photographs also showed coffee being thrown over Hoelscher-Obermaier.

Protesters chanted "It's now or never!" and held up mock gravestones and banners proclaiming "Fight until the end!"

They said they were furious at comments by German envoy Hans-Joachim Fuchtel, who told journalists on Wednesday that Greece could do more to reform its bloated local government sector, the head of the workers' union said.

"Experts say that as far as local government is concerned the work carried out by 3,000 Greek employees can be done by 1,000 Germans," Fuchtel said. On Thursday, he said his remarks had been misinterpreted.

Violence breaks out amid austerity protests in Europe

Fuchtel was appointed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel late last year to explore ways to boost grassroots cooperation between the two countries, and has been lampooned as overbearing in Greek media.

His comments struck a nerve in Greece at a time when its lenders, the European Union and International Monetary Fund, have demanded layoffs and steep spending cuts in exchange for a second $165 billion bailout.

More photos: Demonstrations across Europe over austerity measures

At the Thessaloniki city hall, a woman who answered the switchboard phone said: "No one can talk to you now. They have occupied the building."

A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said: "No one was hurt and there was no material damage. The meeting continues as planned and that's what's important."

Garbage piles
Municipal employees have held several nationwide protests and strikes in recent weeks against the new wave of budget cuts, triggering severe disruptions in public transport and causing garbage to pile up across the capital.

The head of the POE-OTA union of municipal workers, Themis Balasopoulos, said Fuchtel's comments showed the government planned to push ahead with controversial public sector layoffs, about 2,000 of which are scheduled by the end of the year.

Read more coverage from NBC News about Europe's austerity troubles

Unions and some politicians oppose the layoffs, which are mainly expected to target local government workers.

"We are here to express our deep anger at his absurd comments," Balasopoulos told Reuters from the protest in Thessaloniki.

"We are not a democracy -- we are under German supervision. If we had decent politicians they would have put him on a plane last night and sent him back home," he said.

Many Greeks, worn down by years of austerity, blame Merkel for forcing the painful cuts in exchange for the bailouts.

In Germany, media have long characterized the Mediterranean state's 11 million people as lazy, corrupt and ungrateful.

Tens of thousands of Greeks protested against a visit by Merkel to Athens in October and some burned Nazi flags. 

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