Increasing tragic incidents point to alarming apathy on many fronts
It has become a painful and unendurable but all too familiar spectacle. An uncontrolled fire in a high rise building, a chemicals’ warehouse or a poorly constructed factory in a densely populated urban centre turns into a raging inferno in no time, with the helpless victims still trapped within. There are no easily accessible escape routes in case of such an emergency, little or no fire-fighting equipment in working condition and no outside saviours in the form of the fire department. The latter is severely handicapped by inadequate fire tenders, by lack of sophisticated life-saving gear and by its rudimentary training. It takes an inordinate amount of time to put out a blaze, especially in multi-floor buildings and congested areas of the city where the urban development is haphazard, even illegal. In the West, fire-fighters are indoctrinated to save lives even at the cost of their own, and there exists a strong esprit de corps among them. They are rightly accorded a lot of respect and status in society. But then they are also provided with the tools and the housing development is scientifically planned.
Here, high rise buildings are mushrooming, but even in the populous cities such as Karachi and Lahore, the architectural and safety bye-laws are being callously ignored by the concerned individuals (starting with the architect) and all the related government departments. The latest incident of fire erupting in a six-storey Karachi hotel claimed eleven deaths and caused injuries to 30 others. In panic, people jumped from hotel windows and suffered from smoke asphyxiation. In a life and death situation, where minutes matter, hours and obsolete equipment simply will not do. And despite these repeated horrors so graphically reproduced live, nothing seems to change for the better – all is soon erased from memory, except for the victim’s families.
Devolution of powers is absolutely necessary to enable the elected Local Bodies’ officials to make urgent improvements in fire-fighting from the grass roots. The existing City District Governments and corruption-ridden departments have all failed to deliver.