ARSINGDI, Bangladesh — The fire in the garment factory began on the fourth floor, where polo shirts, neatly folded in boxes, made a fine feast for the hungry flames. The 1,250 workers scampered for their lives, most of them hurrying to the stairway that led to the main exit. There, at the bottom, was a folding gate. It was locked.

In panic, the trapped people spun around, rushing back up the steps, colliding with those coming down. It was night. The lights had gone out. Some workers squeezed through windows, shimmying down an outside pipe or chancing a desperate leap.

The rest were caught in a human knot on the dark stairs, arms pushing, mouths screaming, hearts pounding. Some people fell and were trampled. That is how nearly all of the fire's 52 victims died, their final breaths stomped out of them on the hard concrete of the teeming steps. Most were young women. Ten were children.

What Bangladesh has to offer the global economy is some of the world's cheapest labor — and what this impoverished nation has received in return is the economic boost of a $4.3 billion apparel industry, the fuller pockets that come with 1.5 million jobs and the horrors that arise from 3,300 inadequately regulated garment factories, some of which are among the worst sweatshops ever to taunt the human conscience.

"We still suffer from the legacy of the colonial days," said one factory owner, Muhammad Saidur Rehman. "We consider the workers to be our slaves, and this belief is made all the easier by a supply of labor that is endlessly abundant."

For the most part, it is the wretched of the earth who do the world's tailoring. Made in Bangladesh competes with Made in Honduras, Made in the Philippines, Made in Macao, Made in Any Steamy Reservoir of Third World Unemployment: those places where plentiful labor lacks the leverage to command high pay, and the most pitiful thing about the jobs is how hard it is to get them.

Last November's fire at Chowdhury Knitwears interrupted a frantic production schedule. Finished sportswear was due at stores in Britain. The workers, used to a 12-hour day, were ordered to toil as long as 18. They were given a lunch break at 1 p.m., then a shorter breather at 10 p.m., when each received a piece of bread and a banana.

Holidays, mandated by law, were a myth at the Chowdhury factory, said dozens of employees. People were expected to work virtually every day of the year. Overtime pay, another legal requirement, was also a myth. Most wages ranged from $25 to $50 a month — or as little as 6 cents an hour. Children earned less.

"When we'd complain, they'd lock the gates so we couldn't get out," said Aleya Begum, a sewing machine operator here on the outskirts of Narsingdi, 35 miles northeast of Dhaka, the capital. "If someone complained too much, they were fired."

Those long hours had never included a fire drill. And, in the days after the blaze, outraged politicians demanded accountability for the senseless deaths. They decried the garment industry's callous disregard for safety and lamented the government's listlessness in making inspections. Cabinet ministers comforted the hospitalized. The prime minister offered condolences, praying that each of the departed souls would enjoy a peaceful hereafter.

Such hand wringing in a fire's aftermath is by now a studied ritual. Bangladesh's garment industry is barely 15 years old, but the business has grown so rapidly that it accounts for 76 percent of the nation's exports. The number of manufacturers continues to multiply, as do the recurring nightmares: the flames, the locked doors, the frenzied stampedes, the mourning. Since 1995, there have been 30 of these fires, with 17 involving fatalities, according to one labor group that has maintained a list.

Factories are often makeshift enterprises, many of them in the rented upper floors of Dhaka's decrepit downtown buildings. Workers trudge up the narrow stairs, ready to stitch bright fabric beneath the whirling bobbins. Electrical wiring is frequently a jangle of overloaded circuits.

The posttragedy ritual is not a prolonged one, however. Reports of investigators are expediently moved along the bureaucracy's chain of command and then into oblivion. Accountability, so keenly demanded at first, is never quite determined at last.

One more tangible result is a short period of haggling. Bereaved families expect compensation for lost loved ones. After the Chowdhury fire, the factory's workers staged protest marches and were joined by thousands of sympathizers.

The basic demand was 200,000 taka per victim, about $3,700. That was far beyond the usual recompense. But then this had been an especially shocking tragedy.

Upset by the catastrophe and alarmed by bad publicity, leaders of the powerful manufacturing associations met and decided to chip in, adding a sum to the Chowdhury factory's own contribution. Together, they pledged a death benefit they deemed generous: about $1,945.

Nannu Mia, a survivor of the Nov. 25 fire, had helped organize the workers' protests. "Maybe this was a mistake," he said recently, permitting himself an anguished moment of reflection. "Maybe I should have licked their boots instead."

For him, the protests have proved regrettable. Among the workers' demands was a swift reopening of the factory. While this did occur only 44 days after the fire, Mr. Mia was not welcomed back. He said that being an agitator cost him his job.

At Chowdhury Knitwears, the hours may be a strain and the wages a heartache. But almost anyone will say that even a dreadful job is better than none.

A Place Rich in Cheap Labor

The apparel business is a very tough dollar, with profit margins figured to the fraction of a penny. The actual sewing of a shirt is but a tiny part of the final pricing, which must account for cloth, cutting, dyes, packaging, freight, duties, warehousing, advertising, floor space and salespeople.

Consumers want bargains. So retailers try to wrench lower prices from suppliers, who in turn want the clothes stitched at the lowest possible cost. For a poor nation, rich only in cheap labor, the garment industry is a well-trod pathway into the global marketplace.

Bangladesh has a population of 131 million — about half that of the United States — all packed into a country slightly smaller than Iowa.

Its garment workers take home an average monthly wage of $35 for women and $40 for men, according to Rita Afsar, of the Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies. Those earnings are about 25 percent higher than the nation's per capita income.

In the Narsingdi area, with a population of about 3 million, Chowdhury Knitwears is one of the few major factories. Virtually all employees returned to the whitewashed four-story building after the fire. Orders for polo shirts were still unfilled. Fabric in colors with fancy names — rust, midnight, shadow green, putty, orange peel, brilliant blue — was piled on tables.

The building looked much as always, but important changes had been made. Smoke alarms were installed. Thin pipes ran along the ceiling. Excessive heat, detected by a temperature gauge, would automatically trigger a defending spray of water.

This new safety equipment cost nearly $20,000, complained Tanveer Chowdhury, known as Sagar, the managing director of his family's business. A heavy-set man, he was seated in a first-floor office, nervously fingering the gold chain around his neck. He expressed no regret about the loss of life. But he did have more complaints to make.

"This fire has cost me $586,373," he said. "And that doesn't include $70,000 for machinery and around $20,000 for furniture. I had made commitments to meet deadlines, and I still have those deadlines. I am now paying for air freight at $10 a dozen when I should be shipping by sea at 87 cents a dozen. That means I am paying . . ." He pecked at a calculator with his right index finger. ". . . 12 times the shipping price."

Mr. Chowdhury was not there the day of the inferno, but his brother Shamim had not only been present, he also tried to fight the flames. The fire had begun with a spark from an electrical spot gun, used to spray stain remover on soiled merchandise. The blaze then spread to a can of flammable liquid, and a fireball took off.

A try was made at smothering the flames with shirts. Then a fire extinguisher was unlatched, but it malfunctioned, painfully discharging its contents into Shamim's face.

Sagar Chowdhury, 34, described the scene, then woefully shook his head. "When everything is O.K., this business is very good," he said. "Now it is not good."

The family also owns a towel factory, which exports exclusively to America, he said. Three years ago, they expanded into knitwear because "the money is better."

Mr. Chowdhury boastfully returned to his world of numbers, saying that in a good year the business netted $1 million. Less happily, he disputed what his employees had reported about their wages. He said while some did earn as little as the equivalent of $22 a month, others made as much as $74. He said he paid double for overtime. Then, with closer questioning, he grew huffy and distracted.

But he did confide the gist of his ample experience. "Knitwear is a headache business," he said, flicking one hand as if to slap something away. "Headaches with quality, size, color, everything."

A beleaguered businessman, Mr. Chowdhury rubbed his forehead as if this might make the aching go away.

`Good Order' to `No Order'

Bangladesh's garment factories run the gamut. Some seem models of progressive management, with health clinics, day care centers and brightly lighted lunch rooms. Workers wear surgical masks to screen out fibers in the air, and shiny red fire extinguishers hug the walls at regular intervals. Other factories are bleak, stuffy places with cramped aisles that dead-end into haphazard knolls of fabric. Guards are stationed at locked gates, and fire prevention largely consists of empty red water pails.

To export, a factory owner must be a member of one of the nation's three textile associations. These groups then have great power. And from time to time, their leaders discuss whether they have some duty to use this clout to improve working conditions.

"Inhuman things do go on, and it's horrible, horrible," said Kutubuddin Ahmed, the newly elected president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, the biggest of the three. "That Chowdhury fire business, this was horrible."

Mr. Ahmed said that perhaps the time had come for rigorous inspections, to find out what factories were in "good order, semi-order and no order," and that the worst of the lot might face a suspension of their export privileges. "But we don't want to threaten our members or create a panic," he added in afterthought, cautiously moderating his zeal.

Do-gooders here are suspected of shallow thinking. Panic — as well as American naïveté — is widely blamed for a misguided rescue of working children. In 1993, after news media exposés about Bangladesh's garment factories, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, introduced a bill to ban products made with child labor.

Frightened employers impulsively fired tens of thousands of children under the age of 14. By and large, this was not any great setback to the bosses. Very often, they had hired the children as a favor to woebegone parents. Within the next few years, as the Harkin bill became law, about 10,000 of the children ended up in special schools created by Unicef. But most others simply found more dangerous and less lucrative work — breaking rocks, rolling cigarettes, pulling rickshaws.

"There's no such thing as an unmixed blessing," said Roushan Jahan, an author of a book about garment workers. "Progress leaves loopholes. A lot is left to the factory owner's good will, and there is a great deal of curdling in the milk of human kindness."

So what can be done? If manufacturing groups are hesitant to act, if government inspectors are easily bribed, if labor unions are yet to find a foothold, if human consciences are easily held in abeyance, what can make an owner improve conditions?

Recently, the biggest force for reform has come from big retailers worried about the bottom line. Some, like Gap and Wal-Mart, were embarrassingly linked to third world sweatshops and are now rehabilitating their image. Others fear similar scandals that might make softhearted customers feel guiltily attired.

Some major companies now issue codes of conduct and send inspectors into their suppliers' factories to enforce the rules, counting fire exits and auditing overtime records.

These controls are imperfect and a few critics even deride them as farce. And they do not greatly inflate the pay. At Shanta Apparel Ltd. in Dhaka, which has manufactured goods for Tommy Hilfiger, J. C. Penney and Gap, an average employee earns $42 a month, the manager said. But the factory supplies its workers with purified water, clean bathrooms and a doctor on the premises. Doors stay unlocked. There are fire exits.

"That's the wave of the future, buyers who order you to put in two more toilets and place more space between the machines," said Monjural Hoq, president of one of the other manufacturing associations. "That's all fine, as long as they pay us more to get it."

An Uncertain Future

Most factories do not work with the major stores, however. And in Bangladesh there is motivation for owners to gobble up maximum profits before it is too late.

For all the garment industry's success, its future hangs by a thread. Nearly half the exports go to America, where a quota system on imported clothes has favored Bangladesh, limiting some of its biggest competitors to a smaller share of the United States market.

But those quotas expire on Jan. 1, 2005.

After that, the lure of cheap labor may not be enough. Other circumstances make Bangladesh a less practical supplier. Power outages are epidemic. Floods wash away roads. The port is overwhelmed. More important, raw materials for manufacturing need to be brought in at added expense.

Without quota restrictions, China and India, which grow their own cotton, are likely to capture far more of the business from the United States.

And many poor Bangladeshis — suddenly jobless — will find themselves poorer still.

Two-thirds of the garment workers are women. With Bangladesh being a conservative Muslim country, a factory job is one of the few socially acceptable ways for a woman to earn a living. In Dhaka, most of them live in mammoth slums that while deplorable for their squalor are notable for being less squalid than others.

Around Narsingdi, workers are more likely to live in villages with the open air, ripening jackfruit and the moist green of rice paddies. Four months after the fire, the area still seems contaminated by despair. Families have yet to adjust fully to rearrangements, with newly orphaned children handed back and forth.

Most any villager can lead a sorrowful tour. One stop was a bamboo hut, where a 14-year-old named Parina was sitting outside on a stool. Her brother Alauddin, who was 12, had died in the fire, she said. The family badly misses the $11 he earned each month, but they have nevertheless kept another son, 13-year-old Jalaluddin, from returning to Chowdhury Knitwears. "He switched to a brick kiln," Parina said.

Khodeza Begum has three surviving children, but none yet old enough to replace her son Zakir, 15, who had been the family's only breadwinner. "After the fire, all the bodies were laid out in a row," she said, cupping a small photograph of the boy. "When I saw his face I fainted."

Rashida Begum, 18, a fragile-looking woman who has returned to the factory though an injured right hip prevents her from walking easily, was living nearby. She was trampled as she attempted to escape the fire and remembers a rampage of feet on her before she lost consciousness. "My mistake was that I fell," she said glumly.

Abdul Qader Mullah, a skilled mechanic, is a muscular young man. People think he is important to meet because of the awful twist to his story. He bravely stayed behind to fight the fire, finally lowering himself from the roof with a cable. But by the time he escaped, his younger brother had been killed, re-entering the building to look for him.

"His body was so terribly burned up I only recognized him from his belt buckle," Mr. Mullah said. "One of our friends, Liton, he also died after going back into the fire. He had been paid that day and left his money in his other pants."

The surviving families are separated by a peculiar financial distinction. Only 39 of the 52 victims are officially confirmed dead, with their bodies having undergone an autopsy. Other families either refused to allow the post-mortem, thinking it an indignity, or buried their loved ones too hastily. They have been denied the $1,945 compensation.

"Thirty-nine confirmed dead, that's the official figure," said Dr. Atiqul Sarwar, head of a nearby hospital and a member of the government-appointed committee that investigated the fire.

"The blame," he continued, "was actually due to management. There was a minimum of fire extinguishers. Workers were locked in. The emergency exit was itself a danger. It was too steep, sloping almost straight down."

Oddly, and inappropriately, the doctor cracked a smile. He knew this made him appear unfeeling and he apologized. But he was recalling a friendly disagreement with the committee's chairman — and enough time had now passed to prove him right.

In Bangladesh, life, like labor, is cheap, Dr. Sarwar explained. He had insisted their investigation would be a waste of time; the other man said no. "I told the chairman we'd accomplish nothing. I told him, `Relax, relax, just relax. The hue and cry lasts only awhile. And then it means nothing.' "