Rescuers in Bangladesh have found a survivor in the rubble of a clothing factory that collapsed 17 days ago.

The woman is carried by rescuers to an ambulance on a stretcher

"No one heard me. It was so bad for me. I never dreamed I'd see the daylight again," she said.

"There was some dried food around me. I ate the dried food for 15 days. The last two days I had nothing but water. I used to drink only a limited quantity of water to save it. I had some bottles of water around me," she said.

She was discovered in the wreckage of a Muslim prayer room in the building and army officials immediately ordered the cranes and bulldozers to stop work.

Once Reshma finally got their attention, the crews ordered the cranes and bulldozers to immediately stop work and used handsaws and welding and drilling equipment to cut through the iron rod and debris still trapping her.Rescuers have been using diggers to move debris from the site

They gave her water, oxygen and saline as they worked to free her, using handsaws to cut through the rubble, as hundreds of people who had been engaged in the grim job of removing decomposing bodies from the site, raised their hands together in prayer.

"Allah, you are the greatest, you can do anything. Please allow us all to rescue the survivor just found," said a man on a loudspeaker leading the prayers. "We seek apology for our sins. Please pardon us, pardon the person found alive."

Abdur Razzak, a warrant officer with the military's engineering department who first spotted her in the wreckage, said she was in a remarkably good condition and could even walk.

"She was fine, no injuries. She was just trapped. The space was wide," said Lt Col Moyeen, an army official at the scene.The building was in Savar, near the capital, Dhaka

Reshma told her rescuers there were no more survivors in her area. Workers began tearing through the nearby rubble anyway, hoping to find another person alive.

Sky's Foreign Affairs Correspondent Lisa Holland said: "What's really remarkable about the story ... is that the authorities had said that they were going to call off the search for survivors at the end of today and send the bulldozers in as from tomorrow.

"So, with the clock against them, they heard the remarkable cries for help of this woman who somehow had become trapped between a fallen beam and a column and that somehow gave her some sort of pocketed protection and enabled her to survive for 17 days."

More than 2,500 people have been rescued in the immediate aftermath of the collapse. However, the death toll has now risen to more than 1,000.

The collapse is already the world's deadliest garment industry disaster and one of the worst industrial accidents.

The disaster has raised alarm about the often deadly working conditions in Bangladesh's $20bn (£13bn) garment industry, which provides clothing for major retailers around the globe.