A dangerous tendency :
A few days back a massive fire broke out at the DCC Market of Gulshan-1, leading to huge losses for shop owners, as it took four days for firefighters to tame the fire which gutted almost 600 shops. Only a few days later, another fire mishap was reported in Banani. While this was not as severe as the Gulshan-1 fire, it did lead to a sense of panic and alarm amongst the people who happened to be in the vicinity. Videos of people clamouring down the building which was engulfed in fire quickly made the news rounds. This tendency to spread panic and alarm can lead to huge casualties, and also indicates that people have no idea what to do in case of fire. It is also alarming to see that firefighters are failing to respond quickly to these incidents, as they lack state of the art fighting equipment. The government should take massive awareness programmes to educate the public in this regard.
A few days back a massive fire broke out at the DCC Market of Gulshan-1, leading to huge losses for shop owners, as it took four days for firefighters to tame the fire which gutted almost 600 shops. Only a few days later, another fire mishap was reported in Banani. While this was not as severe as the Gulshan-1 fire, it did lead to a sense of panic and alarm amongst the people who happened to be in the vicinity. Videos of people clamouring down the building which was engulfed in fire quickly made the news rounds. This tendency to spread panic and alarm can lead to huge casualties, and also indicates that people have no idea what to do in case of fire. It is also alarming to see that firefighters are failing to respond quickly to these incidents, as they lack state of the art fighting equipment. The government should take massive awareness programmes to educate the public in this regard.
Mohammad Zonaed Emran
Dhaka
