Despite the deadly fire incident at the Lahore Development Authority (LDA)’s building, the City District Government Lahore (CDGL)’s buildings still lack fire safety and emergency evacuation arrangements, Pakistan Today has learnt.
These include the Traffic Engineering and Transport Planning Agency (TEPA), LDA (Johar Town), Town Hall, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Civil Defense buildings.
The Town Hall is one of the most important public buildings in the city. Built before the sub-continent’s partition, it houses all important district offices and records from various departments. However, no anti-fire precautions have been taken for its safety, and the same is the case with the Johar Town LDA office, which, despite being recently constructed, lacks fire exits. According to the Civil Defense officials; emergency response systems which include assembly points, drills and personnel training are completely absent in the high-rise structures. The officials said that firefighting equipment such as hydrants, underground and overhead water reservoirs, dry chemical powder (DCP), carbonated fire extinguishers, sand buckets, fixed and trolley wiring, emergency exits with guiding lights and map indicating exits were missing from these buildings.
LACK OF FUNDS:
Civil Defense sources revealed that inspection teams for fire safety would opt to install poor quality equipment to save face, as proper arrangements exceeded their budgetary constraints, costing around Rs 60,000 to Rs 80,000 per building.
However, the LDA seems to have realised the importance of fire safety since the rude shock of the LDA plaza fire incident. A deadly fire caused by electrical short-circuiting caught hold of the LDA plaza situated on Edgerton Road, claiming 28 lives and causing a lot of material damage, including the destruction of important original records of projects such as Tajpur and Bahria Town. The fire was reported to the fire fighting forces 40 minutes after it erupted, by which time it had already burnt down a number of floors in the high rise building. A petition filed in the Lahore High Court called for action against the LDA chairman for criminal negligence, claiming that the fire was allowed to spread to and completely obliterate the finance and audit departments before Rescue 1122 were informed. Regardless, if the plaza had been provided with fire safety arrangements, the tragedy could have been mitigated.
IT’S NOT EASY CRACKING DOWN ON HIGH-RISES:
In 2007, the Supreme Court took suo moto notice of unsafe high rise buildings in Lahore, imposing a ban on their construction.
Headed by Justice Riaz Kayani, a commission consisting of experts from the private sector thoroughly inspected all multi-storey commercial structures in the city and submitted a report on building bylaws violations and absence of safety arrangements at these buildings. The Punjab government gave a go-ahead for an operation in December after a plea filed by developers of a number of illegal multi-storey plazas was dismissed. However, the operation was discontinued due to pressure from the buildings’ owners.
Thus, time and again the authorities have displayed an irresponsible attitude towards fire-proofing and securing both private and public against such harrowing incidents. The victims are usually the ordinary employees, sacrificed thoughtlessly for the interests of the wealthy and the influential. The civil defense officials acknowledged that their department lacked fire fighting arrangements, but maintained that they were trying to bridge this gap at whatever cost. “We cannot claim more lives. We will ensure that fire safety arrangements are made compulsory upon every building being constructed in the city,” they added.