Why this callous indifference to fire incidents?
Photo: AFP
Surely everyone should know how to behave in a fire. Should not every organisation, apartment block, business and school have fire practices? I remember how the hundreds of pupils, in the first UK school I taught in, took great pride in being able (with lots of practice!) to get the time down to 3 ½ minutes from the fire bell ringing, pupils quickly and silently walking to the lines outside, the class directories of names having been collected and every child checked! Is that not peace of mind for parents also? In 1915, the pleasure cruiser 'Lusitania' crossing the Atlantic with 1,959 passengers was sunk and 1,198 lost their lives. In a similar, later, accident, the only ones who died were those lost in the original explosion. The reason? In the second ship, all those on board were soldiers and knew how to be disciplined in an emergency. It is often chaos that kills. The fire officers in a theatre where I worked backstage for an interesting year, were legally entitled to come in at any time, including during a performance, and, if there was a single lapse in fire safety regulations, they could close the theatre - and with the low profits it made, that could cost us all our jobs never name the public outcry of disapproval! Result scrupulous respect for the fire regulations! (All the scenery had to be painted with fire retardant!). Fifty years later in Bangladesh, why cannot the same rule apply for garment factories too? Will someone explain to me why Bangladesh among other countries is still not serious about accidents, however frequent?
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