Editorial
Fire at airport warehouse
Must such sensitive areas be so insecure?
THE fire which consumed as many as 70 per cent of the goods at the Courier Cargo Building of Shahjalal International airport on Friday only speaks of the many ways in which we fail to have security ensured at sensitive places. It is unheard of, indeed unprecedented for an airport or a part of it to catch fire through such improbable work as repair work through welding machines and that too right inside an important wing of it. What has now happened at the airport is that a whole load of items, ranging from packages to garment samples to electronic equipment, have gone up in smoke.
As if that were not enough, we have been informed that there was no fire-fighting equipment inside the building and that such equipment had to be brought in from outside. That is a most bizarre situation. Are we to suppose that an airport which handles a considerable number of local and international flights on a daily basis is vulnerable to sheer helplessness where sudden accidents are concerned? The horrific nature of conditions can easily be surmised through observing the time it took the airport authorities, the air force, fire service and civil defence to douse the flames. And that was more than four hours into the outbreak of the fire. Clearly, such methods are not good enough, not to the buildings at the airport, not to aircraft and, of course, not to the people who happen to be there.
To be sure, two enquiry committees have been formed to probe the nature of the accident. One has no complaint with such bodies, except that once they are formed, nothing more is heard of them. That only reminds us of the tongue-in-cheek feeling that the best way of throttling an idea or a fact is to form a committee. One expects, though, that these two committees in question will actually go to work fast and come up with reports that lead to results. Meanwhile, it is absolutely necessary that security at the airport, in its entirety, be tightened. If the courier service in question is responsible for the welding that led to the fire, let action against it be taken immediately.
One final point: those firms which have lost products in the fire will need to be compensated. Let them not pay the price for the carelessness of the authorities.
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