DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Eight people were killed when a fire swept through a clothing factory in Bangladesh, police and an industry association official said on Thursday, as the death toll from the collapse of another factory building two weeks ago climbed above 900.

The fire, in an industrial district of Dhaka, comes amid global attention on safety standards in Bangladesh's booming garment industry following the catastrophic collapse of Rana Plaza, on the outskirts of the city, in the world's deadliest industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984.

"It is not clear to us how the accident happened, but we are trying to find out the cause," Mohammad Atiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told Reuters.

On Wednesday the Bangladesh government said it had shut down 18 garment factories for safety reasons following the April 24 collapse of Rana Plaza, which housed five garment factories making clothes for Western brands. Six were cleared to reopen on Thursday after inspectors issued safety certificates.

Salvage teams were still pulling bodies from the rubble of the Rana Plaza complex in Savar, around 20 miles northwest of Dhaka, and on Thursday a spokesman at the army control room coordinating the operation said the number of people confirmed to have been killed had reached 912.

Roughly 2,500 people were rescued from the building, including many injured, but there is no official estimate of the numbers still missing.

The government has blamed the owners and builders of the eight-storey complex for using shoddy building materials, including substandard rods, bricks and cement, and not obtaining the necessary clearances.

Bangladesh's garment industry, which accounts for 80 percent of the poor South Asian country's exports, has seen a series of deadly accidents, including a fire in November that killed 112 people.

The latest fire, in an 11-story building in the Mirpur industrial district, broke out at a factory belonging to the Tung Hai Group, a large garment exporter.

"The factory was closed and all the workers had left the premises an hour earlier," said fire service official Bhazan Sarker.

A fire service official and BGMEA president Islam said the Bangladeshi managing director of the company and a senior police officer were among the dead. The others killed were friends and personal staff of the factory boss, officials said.

Tung Hai Group says on its website that it has more than 1,000 employees and its customers include major Western retailers including Britain's Primark, and Inditex Group of Spain. It makes products including cardigans, jumpers and pyjamas.

A spokesman for Inditex said it had last placed an order with the factory in 2011. "But then we stopped ordering because the factory did not meet the standards we demand from our providers", he said.

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Munir Uz Zaman / AFP - Getty Images

Garment workers who were employed in the factory that collapsed wait in line to claim their pay Wednesday, May 8, 2013, in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

DHAKA, Bangladesh — The death toll from a garment factory building that collapsed outside the Bangladesh capital has climbed past 900, as recovery workers continue pulling bodies from the wreckage more than two weeks after the disaster.

Officials say 912 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of the fallen eight-story building as of Thursday morning.

An army official says 100 badly decomposing bodies being kept at a makeshift morgue near the building site in a Dhaka suburb will be sent to hospitals for DNA testing.

It is not clear what the final toll will be from the disaster, already the world's deadliest garment industry disaster and one of the worst industrial accidents.

More than 2,500 people were rescued alive after the April 24 accident. An unknown number of people were inside.

The Associated Press

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- At least 20 people were killed Sunday and Monday in clashes in Bangladesh between police and hard-line Islamists demanding new laws that critics say would amount to the "Talibanization" of a country that maintains secularism as state policy.

Clashes began on Sunday after about 200,000 Islamist supporters marched toward Dhaka, the capital, to press their demands and were met by lines of police firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

AFP - Getty Images

Islamist protesters throw bricks and stones toward Bangladeshi police during clashes outside Dhaka on Monday. Since Sunday, at least 20 people have died as the hard-liners demand laws based on religion.

On Monday, hundreds of protesters, many wearing white Muslim skull caps and throwing stones, regrouped and police again fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse them.

Violence spread from the capital, where at least 13 died. Five people were killed in Chittagong and another two in Bagerhat.

Protesters set fire to vehicles, including two police cars, and stormed a police post on the outskirts of the capital, police said.

Two policemen and a member of a paramilitary force were among the people killed on Monday, said police official Shah Mohammad Manzur Kader. Four people were killed on Sunday, and hundreds have been injured, hospital officials said.

The protests are led by a group called Hefajat-e-Islam, which set a May 5 deadline for the government to introduce a new blasphemy law, reinstate pledges to Allah in the constitution, ban women from mixing freely with men and make Islamic education mandatory.

Munir Uz Zaman / AFP - Getty Images

Islamist protesters gather Sunday on a highway at an entry point to the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, as they try to enforce a siege in demand of religious laws. The country has a secular government.

The government of the overwhelmingly Muslim country has rejected the demands.

The clash of ideologies could plunge Bangladesh into a cycle of violence as the two main political parties, locked in decades of mutual distrust, exploit the tension between secularists and Islamists ahead of elections that are due by next January.

Bangladesh has been rocked by protests and counter-protests since January, when a tribunal set up by the government to investigate abuses during a 1971 war of independence from Pakistan sentenced to death in absentia a leader of the main Muslim party, the Jamaat-e-Islami.

Jamaat opposed Bangladeshi independence from Pakistan in the war but denies accusations that some of its leaders committed murder, rape and torture during the conflict.

The Hefajat-e-Islam emerged from the protests over the tribunal.

More than 100 people have been killed in the clashes this year, most of them Islamist party activists and members of the security forces.

This story was originally published on Mon May 6, 2013 8:54 AM EDT

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- The death toll from a building collapse in Bangladesh has risen to 160 and could climb higher, police said on Thursday, with people trapped under the rubble of a complex that housed garment factories supplying retailers in Europe and North America. 

The collapse, the third catastrophic incident at Bangladeshi factories in five months that have killed more than 200 people, could taint Bangladesh's reputation as a source of low-cost products and services and call attention to Western retailers and other companies that obtain products from the country. 

Frantic rescue workers were digging through the rubble of the eight-storey Rana Plaza building in Savar, 30 km (20 miles) outside the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, which collapsed on Wednesday. More than 1,000 people were injured. 

"The death toll could go up as many are still trapped under the rubble," Dhaka's district police chief, Habibur Rahman, told Reuters on Thursday. 

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 Savar 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. 

News reports beamed around the world showed young women workers, some apparently semi-conscious, being pulled out of the rubble by firefighters and troops. Doctors at Dhaka hospitals said they couldn't cope with the number of victims. 

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

Images: Desperate search for survivors

The Rana Plaza building collapse follows a November fire at the Tazreen Fashion factory on the outskirts of Dhaka that killed 112 people, and it has compounded concerns about worker safety and low wages in Bangladesh. 

Soon after the collapse, Canada's Loblaw came forward to confirm a connection with the building. It said one factory made a small number of "Joe Fresh" apparel items for the company. 

"We are extremely saddened to learn of the collapse of a building complex in Bangladesh and our condolences go out to those affected by this tragedy," Julija Hunter, public relations vice-president for Loblaw Companies, said in an email. 

"We will be working with our vendor to understand how we may be able to assist them during this time," Hunter said. 

Loblaw Companies Ltd makes Joe Fresh clothing as well as President's Choice supermarket packaged food. Its parent is food processing and distribution firm George Weston Ltd, according to Reuters data. 

Loblaw said it set vendor standards to ensure that products are made "in a socially responsible way" and conducts regular audits. Those standards include prohibiting child harassment and abuse or forced labor, and ensuring fair pay and benefits. 

Bangladesh employs about 3.6 million people in the garment industry and is the world's second-largest apparel exporter. 

Munir Uz Zaman / AFP - Getty Images

A volunteer carries an injured girl after an eight-story building collapsed near Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Wednesday.

Following the Tazreen fire, giant U.S. retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it would take steps to alleviate safety concerns, while Gap Inc. announced a four-step fire-safety program. 

"Still we are struggling to overcome the odds after the Tazreen fire, now another incident which is a strong blow for the sector," BGMEA's Islam said. 

However, Edward Hertzman, a sourcing agent based in New York who also publishes trade magazine Sourcing Journal, said pressure from U.S. retailers to keep a lid on costs continues to foster unsafe conditions. 

Hertzman, whose trade publication has offices in Bangladesh, said New Wave Bottoms Ltd occupied the second floor, Phantom Apparels Ltd the third, Phantom Tack Ltd the fourth and Ethar Textile Ltd the fifth. 

The New Wave website listed 27 main buyers, including firms from Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Canada and the United States. 

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 24, 2013 4:36 AM EDT

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Thousands of Bangladeshi workers blocked the streets of a Dhaka suburb Monday, throwing stones at factories and smashing vehicles, as they demanded justice for at least 112 people killed in a garment-factory fire that highlighted unsafe conditions in an industry rushing to produce for major retailers around the world.

Another fire broke out in a multi-story garment factory in a Dhaka suburb on Monday, but a fire department official said the blaze was under control and there were no immediate reports that anyone had died in the latest blaze.

Some 200 factories were closed for the day after the protest erupted in Savar, the industrial zone where Saturday's deadly fire occurred. Protesters blocked a major highway.

Andrew Biraj / Reuters

Workers shout slogans Monday as they protest against the death of their colleagues after a weekend fire in a garment factory in Savar, Bangladesh, killed more than 100 people.

The government announced that Tuesday will be a day of national mourning, with the national flag flying at half-mast in honor of the dead.

Fire official: No emergency exit
Investigators suspect that a short circuit caused the fire, said Maj. Mohammad Mahbub, fire department operations director. But he said it was not the fire itself but the lack of safety measures in the eight-story building that made it so deadly.

Fire sweeps clothing factory in Bangladesh -- more than 100 killed

"Had there been at least one emergency exit through outside the factory, the casualties would have been much lower," Mahbub said.

He said firefighters recovered at least 100 bodies from the factory, and 12 more people died at hospitals after jumping from the building to escape the fire.

Local media reported that up to 124 people were killed.

"I haven't been able to find my mother," one worker, who gave her name as Shahida, told Reuters. "I demand justice. I demand that the owner be arrested."

Mohammad Ripu, a survivor, said Monday that he tried to run out of the building when the fire alarm rang but was stopped.

"Managers told us, 'Nothing happened. The fire alarm had just gone out of order. Go back to work,'" Ripu said. "But we quickly understood that there was a fire. As we again ran for the exit point we found it locked from outside, and it was too late."

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Ripu said he jumped from a second-floor window and suffered minor injuries.

Mahbub said the fire broke out on the ground floor, which was used as a warehouse, and spread quickly to the upper floors. He said many workers who retreated to the roof were rescued, but dozens of others were trapped; firefighters recovered 69 bodies from the second floor alone.

Many victims were burned beyond recognition. The bodies were laid out in rows at a school nearby. Many of them were handed over to families; unclaimed victims were taken to Dhaka Medical College for identification.

More news from South & Central Asia on NBCNews.com

Hazardous conditions are widespread
The garment-factory fire was Bangladesh's deadliest in recent memory, but such dangers have long been a fact of life as the industry has mushroomed to meet demand from major retailers around the world.

At least 500 people have died in clothing factory accidents in Bangladesh since 2006, according to fire department officials.

The Savar factory is owned by Tazreen Fashions Ltd., a subsidiary of the Tuba Group. Neither Tazreen nor Tuba Group officials could be reached for comment.

The Tuba Group is a major Bangladeshi garment exporter whose clients include Wal-Mart, Carrefour and IKEA, according to its website.

Andrew Biraj / Reuters

A firefighter inspects a garment factory in Savar, Bangladesh, on Sunday after a fire caused more than 100 deaths there a day earlier.

Bangladesh has some 4,000 garment factories, many without proper safety measures. The country annually earns about $20 billion from exports of garment products, mainly to the United States and Europe.

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The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said it would stand by the victims' families and offered $1,250 to each of the families of the dead. The association's acting president, Siddiqur Rahman, said on a talk show late Sunday that Tazreen's owner was to meet with group representatives on Monday.

"We will discuss what other things we can do for the families of the dead," Rahman said on Rtv, a private television station. "We are worried about what has happened. We hope to discuss everything in detail in that meeting."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Andrew Biraj / Reuters

A man salvages his belongings after a fire in a slum at Shyamoli in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, on May 16, 2012.

At least 10 people were injured, including a firefighter who sustained burns, and more than 150 shanties were burned down as a blaze swept through a Dhaka slum, Reuters reports. The local fire department said the cause of the blaze had yet to be ascertained.

Bangladeshi photographer Abir Abdullah, who took the photo below, has been documenting the havoc created by Dhaka's frequent fires for several years. He spoke to The New York Times about the project last month.

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Abir Abdullah / EPA

A woman cries holding her child after she lost her shanty house in the fire.

Munir Uz Zaman / AFP - Getty Images

Firefighters work to control the blaze.