Death from boiler accidents

BOILER burst at a garment factory in Gazipur on Monday killed at least nine people and burnt 50 others is pathetic as sheer negligence of the authority and lack of proper monitoring now-a-days cause to increase the such incident and subsequent burnt-to-death. It is feared that the death toll may rise as some of the victims were critically injured. The incident is not new as at least 17 people died in three boiler bursts this year while 13 of them died in a single incident in Dinajpur. After Rana Plaza disaster, many garments have fulfilled compliances, including, workplace safety, minimum wage, labour rights and hygiene environment, despite, boiler explosion in garments and other factories has become a matter of concern.

As per news outlets, the factory was scheduled to open Tuesday after the Eid vacation, and the people were there for maintenance works, meaning unskilled and inexperienced people dealt the boiler that exploded due to operational error and took off their life. The magnitude of the burst was so huge that shutter the plaster of walls and floors over the boiler room. Thanks the fate as the factory was in vacation. Earlier in last September, boiler explosion at a Tongi factory killed at least 24 people and injured 74 others. The explosion collapsed the four storeys Tampaco Foils Ltd building and jolted the entire area in the industrial zone of Tongi, Gazipur.

A boiler is a closed tank in which water is heated. The main function of it is to generate steam for space heating, sterilisation, drying, humidification and power generation. And the government’s lack of inspection capabilities of this widely used equipment is evident in the string of fatal accidents. For the 5,000 odd authorized boilers in the country, there are six inspectors esignated to examine them once a year. It is stunning how six people can inspect 5000 authorized boiler while unauthorized boiler is undocumented. The polytechnics should provide knowledge how to operate boiler safely and manpower in such non-formal sector has a lack. We advocate for increasing the boiler inspection and for that government needs to recruit professional inspector. The garment authority could not escape their responsibility for using risky boiler and deal them by novice.