The devastating blaze
THE Thursday night's fire in old Dhaka with its horizontal and vertical swipes wreaked such havoc on human lives and property that it sent instant shock waves throughout the country and well beyond. As we find ourselves in a national mourning mode and pray for salvation of the departed souls and early recovery and rehabilitation of the victims, our intense anguish must steel us into a resolve to avert recurrence of any such disaster. And, we believe that it is within our means to accomplish the task whatever may be the enormity of the problems. These are basically structural giving rise to built-in vulnerabilities which induced as they are by manmade factors can be redressed through human intervention.
The density of population per square km in much of old Dhaka is among the highest in the world. As though that was not enough, the housing blocks of all denominations are clustered in thickly concentrations edging out to dead ends. It is common knowledge that through the blind alleys the fire brigades cannot gain access to fire and put it down with the required speed.
The stipulation for keeping a certain space between two houses or blocks of them and minimum accessibility to and from habitats are deliberately flouted and there is no one to demand compliance. None of the do's and don'ts of building codes are applied by any authority, and even if attempted gets easily bribed away. With each devastating fire accident the dire need for public awareness is forcefully underscored.
Besides, there are no fire safety escapes, let alone fire extinguishers and other safety devices within housing compounds. What is particularly dangerous for civic life is the string of factories intruding into residential areas with all their inflammable materials and hazardous tools. The tangled webs of electric wiring bearing witness to taking out mostly unauthorised connections from over-burdened transformers are prone to accidents.
In all, a fire is just waiting to break out and go out of control just about anywhere in the older part of Dhaka. Furthermore, if fire has caused devastation, its fallout is even greater, thanks to our unpreparedness to face up to relief, rescue and hospitalisation challenges.
Given the vulnerabilities in so many fronts to fire and building collapses, the government will be well advised to constitute a high level committee to devise practical ways and means to prevent such a catastrophe happening again. We urge the government to do some restructuring with demolition and relocation of hazardous buildings and acquisition of land to allow for creation of spaces between habitats. Simultaneously, we should launch a sustained public awareness campaign to educate land and house owners on the necessity of abiding by the building code including fire safety precautions.
Rather than piecemeal and ad hoc measures, we need to take a mega view of the flaws and inadequacies in civic life and set about overcoming them in a planned way.
It is high time not only to think out of the box but also act out of it with best practices followed in other cities that had had their bad days in mind and a positive vision for the future.
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