‘Savdhani hatti Durgatna Gatti’ is a time tested adage which stresses upon being always on the guard and never taking chances in respect of safety and security measures. If the fire incident of wee hours of February 12 in Talab Tillo is perused from this aspect , it would definitely open many issues regarding safety measures and the extent of promptness of management of an emergency and minimising of the impact right from its start.
Three storey building was housing a Saw Mill in its ground floor .This building was reported to be quite old and the impact of the continuous working of the Mill on its structure , the fire, electric and safety audits of the Mill, the narrow approaches to the spot, the provision of watch and guard, fire fighting mechanism installed in the Mill and similar factors were perhaps taken for granted. Right from 4 am when some smoke was seen coming out of the Mill , for full 30 minutes nothing of the sort was done till flames started leaping up and nearly after an hour , fire tenders started reaching and within ten minutes the building caved in trapping fire fighting personnel which resulted in the tragic death of three Fire personnel. The team of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) reached the accident site at 6.15 am .
An eight hour long struggle of dealing with the accident reveals the extent of the tragedy and raises many questions about the tradition of our dealing with such emergencies with the proverbial “digging a well whilst fire was raging”. State Disaster Response Force needs to tone up and revamp itself thoroughly. Full and thorough investigation would unravel weaknesses where we needed to set right things in the right earnest.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel