Mohammed Norul Alam Raju :
One of the finest holiday morning on 21 February 2019, many people woke up to find the report that at least 67 people were reported dead and scores injured many with severe burns by the deadly fire incident in a building on a shabby alleyway in Old Dhaka called Chawkbazar. After the fire broke out at Nanda Kumar Lane in Chawkbazar’s Churihatta area around 10:35pm Wednesday, a total of 39 fire-fighting units from 13 stations and locals fought the flames throughout the night and managed to douse them after 12 hours of effort.
According to Fire Service and Civil Defence officials, the fire spread to several adjacent buildings in minutes as they, apart from shops, housed warehouses of plastic materials, chemical compounds, and perfume and body spray – all of which are highly flammable materials and made it difficult for the fire-fighters to extinguish the flames quickly.
According to media reports, there are more than 25,000 chemical warehouses in Old Dhaka, of which around 15,000 are in residential buildings. Fire service officials said only around two percent storehouses have permission from the City Corporation.
Reminding Old Dhaka residents as well as the nation of the June 2010 fire tragedy at Nimtoli that killed 124 people, the Chawkbazar incident has become the second-worst such disaster in Bangladesh’s history. Similarly, we can recall a building collapse in Savar in 2013 that caused death of 1134 people with left many of the people injured for the lifetime.
It is expected that this fire incident remain lots of questions in people’s mind. What could have been done to avoid such a massive loss of life and property? Has the government done the bare minimum? Why such accidents happen over and over again?
It is predicted that Dhaka – one of the most populous mega cities in the world – will face a series of disasters in coming years due to destruction of city environment caused by its rapid growth of unplanned urbanisation and lack of good governance. According to the sources, the city will become fifth largest city by 2030 in terms of population. Dhaka city is also at high risk due to earthquakes. According to the earthquake disaster risk index, Dhaka is the most vulnerable among the 20 most vulnerable cities in the world. But the question is are we really ready to make the city livable? Unfortunately, there are lots of promises in all around where few of them came into the lights.
After Chawkbazar, the government authorities have once again promised that the chemical factories and warehouses would be relocated from the city’s old part to Keraniganj at any cost considering safety of the people. A similar promise was also given after the Nimtoli tragedy that claimed 124 lives. But it is yet to procure land to set up a chemical warehouse zone. After the Nimtoli tragedy, a government probe committee had made a 17-point recommendation. It suggested shifting warehouses to nonresidential areas, enforcing Fire Prevention and Extinguishing Rules 2003 and Bangladesh National Building Code, installing separate hydrant points in the city’s different areas, forming a cross-functional licence issuing body and updating school and college textbooks to raise awareness from an early age. It is a harrowing tale that none of them touched the heart of the authorities concerned.
Many have raised the question how such deadly incidents are taking place one after another when a number of government agencies are responsible to oversee and enforce the building and fire safety codes. The relevant government agencies have failed to inspect and monitor the illegal establishment. In case of “Waheed Mansion” building where the basic fire measures were totally missing. Even, it lacked regulations requiring use of chemical warehouse at its various floors.
Considering the nature of an entire city’s vulnerability, the government of Bangladesh has undertaken a number of initiatives to minimise the loss and damage caused by any possible disaster. Analysing the seismic data, the government has already prepared the earthquake risk maps of Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet City Corporations and similar mapping projects are indeed underway for some of sub-regions. The Standing Orders on Disaster (SOD) has been updated in 2010 to identify the duties and responsibilities of the relevant ministries, departments and agencies to reduce disaster risk and damage.
The National Contingency Plan has already been prepared. The authority concerned is going to update the plan by formulating the contingency plans of the emergency response agencies like Fire Service and Civil Defence (FSCD), Armed Forces Division (AFD), Department of Disaster Management (DDM), and Cyclone Preparedness Programme (CPP) to address the post-disaster situation. The Ministry of Housing and Public Works approved new version of Bangladesh National Building Code in constructing new structures to make the structures disaster resilient. Back in 2011, the government launched an initiative to build an emergency force of 62,000 community volunteers across the country to carry out rescue operations immediately after any disaster. The government has also procured equipment under the “Procurement of Equipment for Search and Rescue Operation and Other Disasters” to carry out rescue operation immediately after disasters.
Although the government took significant initiatives, preparedness is far too inadequate to address its aftermath due to the lack of implementation. Many risk factors like unplanned urbanisation remain. People have no proper knowledge about massive fire incident and citizens have no idea what they have to do during one. Though government decided to build 62,000 community volunteers to carry out rescue operations immediately after urban hazards. But in eight years since announcing the scheme, they could merely trained half of them and there are no initiatives to refresh and build their extended capacity.
On the other hand, inefficiency and lack of coordination among the different government bodies and non-government organizations is also considered as a big challenge. Debris management will become a serious challenge if tremor hits. A single building collapse (Rana Plaza) generated about 7,000 tonnes of debris and nearly 21 days were needed to complete the rescue operation.
So the question remains – how prepared is the government to face possible worst-case scenarios following a disaster, such as fire incident in Chawkbazar and what should they immediately do? Involving different ministries and the non-government organisations, a coordination mechanism should be developed so that special guidelines could be prepared and disseminated, and extensive mass awareness programmes would be launched. The awareness programmes must span all strata of society including city dwellers, government officials, municipality officials, politicians, engineers, architects, designers, builders and medical people.
The government must enforce the Building Construction Act and the Building Construction Regulation in setting up new structures and stress the need for formulating a policy and nominate an authority to implement the Building Construction Regulation. Through the implementation of Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC), casualties and the overall damage can be minimised.
Initiatives should be taken to demolish old and highly risky buildings as a first step towards minimising casualties in such natural disasters, followed by their retrofitting to make the vulnerable buildings earthquake-tolerant.
Increase the capacity of emergency response agencies in skills and equipment as well as their structure, responsibilities and coordination mechanism along with proper-regular financial allocation. Fire Service units have lack of narrowed-road friendly equipment to response to the hazards. Government should emphasise greater involvement of public and private sector on implementing Disaster Risk Reduction measures. Increase disaster preparedness and awareness capacity of the communities where media could play an important role along with other related stakeholders.
Most importantly the storage of chemicals and other industrial materials in residential areas must be stopped. The government should investigate into the matter why the chemical industry shifting process has been stalled and thus should ensure proper punishment.
Finally, we never expect these sorts of accident or any major incidents anywhere in the city but preparedness, awareness and governance could contribute, reducing the loss of lives and property.
(Mohammed Norul Alam Raju is Technical Program Director in World Vision Bangladesh).
