Every time, the fire alarm sounded on my ship, in my twenty odd years as a seafarer, I groaned. Fire drills can be quite painful & show up weaknesses in your training and infrastructure. On a ship, one prepares, relentlessly, for maybe, that one occasion, when there is a fire on board, where you have to do the right things right to save your ship & crew, from death and destruction.
As a young Captain, I got my turn, while my ship was undergoing a massive repair. Welding on an upper deck, caused, a fire to break out. Unfortunately, following Murphy’s law the fire, broke at 2 AM in a fairly inaccessible compartment. As the temperature rose (literally) I marveled, at how efficient & composed my men were. The rather complicated & dangerous Fire Fighting operation was carried out with a minimal amount of fuss & the fire was put out in about two hours.
A de brief on the event showed that all our FF equipment worked very well, instructions were understood & followed and collateral damage was minimal. The key to our success- Great preparation due to the right processes and training, leading to the right steps being taken as a reflex action. Practice does that for you.
Cut to the fire which broke out in the third floor of the Carlton Towers here at Bangalore, a couple of days ago, leaving a great many people dead. Everything which could go wrong did- Fire Exits were locked, Fire Fighting equipment malfunctioned, Building staff were untrained & confused, Electrical plans were apparently not updated or organized, people who worked in the many offices had no clue, as to how to react to a fire! Three persons died due to fatal injuries after jumping from the top floors of the building while six lost their lives due to severe burns and asphyxiation. Most builders flout fire safety requirements because it saves money and improves their bottom line, but, at what cost? Death! The death of innocents, as we have seen at the Carlton Towers. The apathy & negligence is appalling………………………….As far as I'm concerned professional negligence is criminal and must be treated as such, with extended jail terms dished out to those who flout safety norms.OSHA guidelines could be a standard, for having a framework, in issues of safety.
Rescue workers who reached the building had little idea as to how to react as quite likely, they would not have had access to building plans. The irony is that, collective memory, is so short lived in this country, that, this issue would rest on the back burner, till the next fire in unsafe buildings, kills more people.
Watch the fire engulf, the Navigating Bridge, of the largest container ship, Emma Maersk'
7 comments:
In Gujarat, since the earthquakes schools have started Disaster Management Training as part of the curriculum. Many corporates also have started Fire Drill Trainings and similar initiatives. But these acts are extremely restricted and it is important that these become mandatory in various setups!
The incident was indeed very unfortunate and lives lost seemed so futile..
Radz,
Very true...........I'm surprised at the amount of information that kids have about fire fighting. Obviously being taught in schools.
Unfortunately, a whole generation of Indian's missed out & also the laws are so slack that builders & such flout rule and get away, as do people who are to implement safety!
Gujarat, went through a horrendous phase, starting with a cyclone which hit Kutch, in 1998. My ship was caught in that storm & was quite an experience, for me.....a great story to tell, except that we were the lucky ones who got away, safe!
It's not surprising that they take disaster management seriously ...............
How's life otherwise?????????
Nope.. All schools don't teach fire fighting.. I haven't had any practical training or even detailed theoretical lessons.. Just rem a couple of classes talking about using blankets and not throwing water on fire.. That's all!
Life's ok.. Just lying low.. Not that I have a lot of choices but still :)
True.
We fail repeatedly. We do not respect anything including our own lives.
am sure very few companies are following OSHA..and there are chances that even they don't know how to handle disasters..rules and regulations (even though they are for our safety!!) are meant for papers and records..they are hardly being implemented.
no matter what anything that's not in use tends to get rusted. it is so pathetic that the fire exits were actually locked and the fire fighting equipment have failed.also the electrical plans were not updated and the people didn't even know how to protect their own selves!! well its the duty of an individual to keep himself aware basic information like what to and what not do during a catastrophe. it needn't be like only after we experience we are going to learn something cause both life and experience are such costly teachers who we can't afford to play with. development needn't always be monetary it could also be in terms of how knowledgeable we are.also very few companies are following OSHA!! so we must learn our lesson at least now and better be Aware!!
I guess its another trait of ours which gets the goat, of many folk around the world.
We study for the sake of studying.........implementation & execution are always on the back burner, because we fear uncertainty and want to avoid it.
It is important to implement that which we learn......if you can't, then forget it!
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