Editorial
Two years after Nimtoli
Chemical hazards abound in residential areas
Usually we try to live down bad memories, but they keep haunting us with vengeance. Be it Aila or Nimtoli, it is the same old story. But here we confine ourselves to the feelings on the second anniversary of the chemical disaster in the old part of the city that sent shockwaves throughout the country.
One can ascribe two reasons for the recurrence of nightmares. First, those who fell victim to Nimtoli inferno have neither been compensated for nor fully rehabilitated. Many households lost their earning members, many a survivor was thrown on the street with no means of livelihood to fall back on. The scar is unhealed.
Secondly, the authorities after an initial hype settled back quickly into unlearning the lessons thrown up by Nimtoli disaster. The government initiatives to remove chemical storehouses and factories from residential areas through mobile court drives frizzled out in the face of businessmen's resistance. The authorities then gave a deadline of September 30, 2010 to factory owners to relocate outside the residential areas and warned the chemical depot lessees with punitive action if they should continue renting out their premise beyond the cut-off date.
The deadline has long been overshot and chemical warehouses were spotted by our reporter at Nawab Katra, Mahuttuli, Bangshal, Siddique Bazar, Sat Rowza, Babu Bazar and Armanitola. Little wonder, several more fire accidents have occurred in old Dhaka from harbouring combustible materials since Nimtoli.
We have a law called the Environment Conservation Rules 1997 that prohibits operation of any industry using hazardous chemicals or goods in and around residential areas. In fact, the law seems toothless when you consider the rider clause that the owner of such a concern must have environment clearance certificates before they can use the materials. Are we to believe, this can be set up even in a residential area provided there is a clearance certificate which is rather easily procured?
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