by Jayne O'Donnell and Calum Macleod USA TODAY, USA TODAY

by Jayne O'Donnell and Calum Macleod USA TODAY, USA TODAY

Retailers and global brands faced new pressure to improve the safety of the buildings where workers make much of the clothing sold in the U.S. following a fire in a Bangladesh garment factory Wednesday that killed eight people, including the owner.

News of the fire came as the death toll passed 900 in the April 24 collapse of Rana Plaza, a Bangladesh building housing a number of garment factories.

The parent company for the smoke-blackened Tung Hai Sweaters plant, scene of the new disaster, says most of its business comes from North American and Western European companies, though it doesn't list any U.S. stores or brands among clients,

U.S. chain The Children's Place,a Bangladesh factory that supplied Gap claimed 29 lives. It did not have suppliers in either of the latest building disasters.

Gap had backed out of negotiations on the IndustriaLL proposal in 2012, according to Scott Nova, executive director of the non-profit group Worker Rights Consortium, "because, in the end, Gap was unwilling to make the agreement binding and enforceable," says Nova.

Gap now says it has hired independent fire inspectors based in Bangladesh who have identified improvements that can be made at the factories with which it does business in that country. But Nova questions the use of the word of independent by companies who are paying the inspectors.

Almost all the employees had left work as usual Wednesday evening, but the firm's managing director Mahbubur Rahman, a few friends