For years now, a lack of fire safety and precautions has become a worrying trend, especially in our industrial areas.
From the tragic depot fire in Chittagong from a few months ago, that claimed far too many lives and severely injured even more, to the everyday instances of fires breaking out in smaller-scale factories and even residential areas, this is one trend that we absolutely have to extinguish before it’s too late.
But given the frequency and severity of these fires, we feel compelled to ask: What exactly is the root cause of such incidents?
The underlying reason that allows such fires to break out in the first place boils down to corruption and impunity. Too many buildings in the capital violate basic codes which are meant to prevent fires altogether, such as the infamous FR Tower in Banani that was set ablaze around three years ago.
FR Tower violated every possible safety rule for years until the blaze that claimed numerous lives. In the case of the Chittagong depot fire, which is still being investigated, volatile chemicals which were not supposed to be stored in the depot’s premises are what ultimately led to that tragedy.
The pattern is clear: Rules are being flouted by owners of these establishments and they have been getting away with it for too long.
Just yesterday, a fire broke out at a textile warehouse in Gazipur that, fortunately, did not result in any casualties. We witness such fires at an alarming frequency, to the point that such stories barely register within the public sphere anymore at all because of just how desensitized everyone has become to them.
And that is ultimately how we all succumb, when a problem becomes so ubiquitous that it stops mattering.
We need to break this cycle before it burns us all.