Always too little too late
A series of blasts inside a decommissioned oil tanker at Gadani ship breaking yard is yet another stark reminder of how little pre-emptive measures are taken at locations that are susceptible to such dangers. The death toll has so far reached 17 with close to 100 workers still inside the ship who are unlikely to be found alive. After the Baldia town factory fire that resulted in 258 deaths this will be the second biggest death toll due to inadequate safety measures at dangerous workplaces.
There are few laws that require safety precautions to be taken and there are even fewer instances of those laws being implemented. In the absence of onsite fire extinguishing apparatus and first aid kits the most immediate medical assistance will always be too late; this was the case at Gadani where ambulances and fire fighters took close to an hour to reach.
It is heartening to see that newer building structures have to follow certain codes and guidelines to get necessary approvals for construction but older structures that do not have effective evacuation plans in place. The LDA building fire is a case in point. Unfortunately labour safety is very low on the list of priorities of both the lawmakers and employers.
Occupational hazards are bound to happen and it is the duty of provincial and federal governments and more importantly the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to implement laws such as the building code of 2007 for example. The inspection and monitoring process should not be a one-time exercise when approvals are being taken, rather a continuous exercise where violations have serious consequences.
Regular training of disaster management forces along with the use of updated technology is required for better response times as well. The frequency of such incidents will not decrease unless there is seriousness about the implementation of safety measures. One hopes it does not take another triple digit death toll for the relevant authorities to realise this.
