Editorial
Strikingly humanitarian response to Savar disaster
People and professionals extend help
WE are having difficulty coming to terms with yet another disastrous accident. The scale of the 9-storey building called Rana Plaza collapsing in Savar has left us dumbfounded. As if that was not enough, cracks were detected in a nearby commercial building owned by the same person.
With the body count reaching into the hundreds and thousands feared trapped under the rubble, the outpouring of public sympathy has been something highly commendable. With everyone lending a hand in the rescue operation, directing traffic, and taking the injured to hospitals, this speaks volumes of a nation in shock. The collective effort, that is spontaneous in nature, to do all that is humanly possible to rescue as many victims and as fast as possible.
Immediately following the accident, the fire brigade, army units, police, Rab and civil administration came forward to help in the gigantic rescue operation. Yet, one can only marvel at the hundreds of volunteers thronging the site who put their lives on the line to enter the rubble to aid the undermanned rescue workers. Looking beyond the crash site, one finds doctors and interns working round the clock at all the nearby hospitals to treat the wounded. Some pharmaceutical companies have voluntarily come to the aid of medical services with much needed emergency supplies. Blood camps have been set up on site and all over the city, where people have thronged in their thousands to donate plasma.
Ordinary citizens, business establishments, students have all been galvanised into action. The sense of responsibility brought on by the disaster got translated into good reflexes on the part of the people. Yet when the dust has settled and the rubble cleared, one can only hope that authorities will wake up from their reverie and get their act together in addressing loopholes in the system that allow for disasters like this to happen on a regular basis.
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