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 Nearly 100 survivors have been pulled from the wreckage of the
factory, which made shopping bags 20 km (12 miles) south of the city
of Lahore, but rescuers say scores of workers had been crowded into
the building's basement.
"We were working on the first floor when the roof collapsed," said
one of the trapped workers, Liaqat Ali, who used his mobile to talk
to a television station.
"Now, I can hear the rumble of heavy machines which gives me hope
that I will come out alive."
Rescue officials on Wednesday said 150 people were believed to have
been in the building when it collapsed. But rescuers had to move
slowly, government officials said, to avoid further injuries to
those still trapped.
 Injured survivors said the factory's owner, who was adding a third
floor, had ignored advice from his contractor and pleas from his
workers to stop construction after cracks in the walls following a
powerful earthquake last week.
"The factory owner had an exchange of harsh words with the
contractor who had advised him to stop the work due to cracks
appearing after the earthquake," Muhammad Ramzan, a worker trapped
under the rubble, told rescue officials by telephone.
The quake of magnitude 7.5 killed more than 300 people in Pakistan
and the northern parts of neighboring Afghanistan and damaged
thousands of buildings.
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The owner of the factory was among the dead, said a government
official, Muhammed Usman. Representatives of the factory management
could not immediately be reached for comment.
Muhammed Younis Bhatti, an official of emergency responder Edhi
Rescue Services, said 97 survivors had been pulled from the rubble.
Pakistan's construction sector is plagued by poor oversight and
developers frequently flout building codes.
In September 2012, 289 people burned to death in a fire at a garment
factory in the southern city of Karachi. On the same day, a fire at
a shoe factory in Lahore killed 25.
(Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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