In Our Opinion: Frequent fire tragedies speak of criminal abdications, disrespect for sanctity of human life

It takes a tragedy

The National Building Code lays down extended directions for avoiding occurrence mishaps. Most states excessively person their occurrence information guidelines. Protocols necessitate each hospitals to undertake hazard appraisal exercises, behaviour occurrence absorption and evacuation drills and supply oxygen information grooming to each staff. Healthcare professionals from doctors and nurses to ward attendants should beryllium made alert of the imaginable risks of oxygen combustion and trained to grip instrumentality carefully. However, determination is scarcely immoderate supervision of occurrence information protocol adherence. Fire information operations autumn nether municipalities, a tier of governance whose weaknesses person multiplied successful caller times.

Inspections are anemic and, astatine best, once-in-a-few-years exercises. It takes a calamity to uncover violations – whether that beryllium the AMRI infirmary inferno successful 2011, the blaze successful a backstage infirmary successful Delhi successful May this twelvemonth oregon the calamity that led to the decease of 10 babies successful 2021 astatine a healthcare centre, astir 60 km from Nagpur, oregon the respective different infirmary fires during the pandemic.

Police extracurricular the NICU ward of the infirmary successful Jhansi. (Express photograph by Vishal Srivastav)

Accident aft accident, including the Jhansi fire, has shown that occurrence exits are excessively constrictive — astatine times built lone to tick a container — to evacuate radical safely during an emergency. Fire information protocols besides necessitate hospitals to physique dedicated staircases with a larger width to facilitate the casual evacuation of patients connected stretchers during a rescue. They telephone for rational usage of oxygen and request that cylinders should beryllium turned disconnected erstwhile not successful use. Electrical equipment, which are not successful use, should beryllium switched disconnected truthful that a stray spark does not pb to a occurrence successful the oxygen-enriched environment. Yet, a blaze each fewer months astatine a healthcare installation underscores that these rules are followed lone successful breach. Investigations get astatine akin conclusions. But nary lessons are learnt.

Short-circuiting safety

National Crime Records Bureau information is grounds that occurrence information is, astatine best, an afterthought successful gathering readying successful India. In the past 5 years, astir 3,500 occurrence incidents person been reported from the state with electrical abbreviated circuits being a predominant cause. More than 6,000 lives person been snuffed retired since 2019 due to the fact that of the deficiency of precedence accorded to fireproofing successful the operation of buildings.

In 2020, the National Institute of Disaster Management report, ‘Fires successful India: Learning Lessons for Urban Safety (2020)’, underlined that, “The apathy of the authorities successful taking immoderate enactment has intelligibly indicated that small has been learnt from the erstwhile occurrence outbreaks.” Four years later, the Jhansi calamity is impervious of the continuing apathy and disrespect for the sanctity of quality life.

Till adjacent time.

Stay well,
Kaushik Das Gupta