According to Mr. Zahir, most Bangladeshi factories had already faced losses or thin margins since last year because of government-implemented wage increases in December 2018. Now, many buyers were canceling orders that had been produced, delaying payments and asking for discounts on already shipped goods.

“We have been left with around 20 percent of our orders for April. Beyond that, everything is uncertain,” Mr. Zahir said.

On March 26, the country deployed soldiers and police to enforce the start of a nationwide 10-day shutdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The densely populated country of 160 million people is deemed to be at a high risk of increased infections because hundreds of thousands of overseas Bangladeshi workers had returned home in recent weeks, often traveling from virus-affected nations to cramped and closely confined living conditions with little sanitation.

In an indication of the importance of the garment sector, which provides 80 percent of the country’s export earnings, retail factories are currently an essential industry, though the majority are currently closed.

“Factories are likely to empty of orders from April onward and are not in a position to pay salaries to workers. We understand it is a difficult time for buyers but they must understand that garment manufacturers are currently the weakest link,” said Mr. Zahir. “Workers are the responsibility of brands as well. They have better access to liquidity and governments offering much bigger rescue packages.”

A survey of factory owners in Bangladesh by Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Global Workers’ Rights found that millions of workers, mostly women from rural areas, had already been sent home without owed wages or severance pay. According to the survey, nearly all Western buyers refused to contribute to worker wages, and 70 percent of furloughed workers had been sent home without pay.