All that we can lose in the fire

The recent fire at a slum in the capital’s Tejgaon is yet another tragic reminder that, when it comes to fire safety, we are still playing it incredibly fast and loose.

While the fire at Mollabari slum was tamed in the early hours of Saturday due to the tireless efforts of our fire servicemen, it managed to raze around 300 homes to the ground while also claiming two lives, at the time of writing, while injuring many.

Fires are, unfortunately, an incredibly common occurrence in Bangladesh, especially in our capital city due to its densely populated nature, but fires in slums are particularly tragic given how they affect those who are already incredibly underprivileged and marginalized. Needless to say, this fire needs to be properly investigated to the fullest extent of the law.

It is not outside the bounds of reason for a slum fire to have been the result of a deliberate act of arson, as unscrupulous individuals causing mayhem at the expense of public safety to clear land is not without precedence. But while that is still conjecture in the context of the Mollabari fire, it does nothing to ease the sufferings of those who have lost everything to it.

For too long has Bangladesh struggled with inadequate social safety nets, all while the wealth gap keeps getting wider and wider. The underprivileged already have far too much to deal with, which is why the prospect of a single mishap robbing them of whatever they have left is especially harrowing.

Now that the elections are over and the new cabinet has been formed, it is high time that we as a nation started making our demands be heard much more loudly. We cannot afford to live in a country that does not prioritize equitable economic prosperity, and we most definitely cannot feel safe knowing how much we stand to lose to the flames of bureaucratic incompetence.