Smoke billowing out of Carlton Towers on the old airport road in Bangalore on Tuesday following a fire mishap. Firemen rescued many employees but the state’s home minister V.S. Acharya was quoted as saying five people were feared dead.
Photographs: Karnataka Photo News
The government clearly has no commitment to protect citizens. The message seems to be ‘Pay your taxes, and grind no axes’. The common citizen of India is not safe anywhere — at home, in his office, or on the street.
Even basic fire safety norms have not been followed at the Carlton Towers. Outdated electrical wiring seems to have been the cause of the accident. The fire officials did not even know how to administer basic medical treatment to victims affected by smoke or those who suffered fractures.
The concept of safety nets which can be rushed to fire-affected buildings at short notice seems to be alien to Indian fire forces. Almost all the lives lost could have been saved if the police and the fire force had safety nets to catch people falling off the building when they could no longer bear the heavy smoke and fumes from the fire.
Fire safety nets were absent during the Taj Mahal hotel episode in Mumbai during the November 2008 terrorist attacks. If nets were used to catch those desiring to escape through the windows of the hotel, many lives could have been saved from terrorist gunfire and explosions in the hotel.
Panic stricken jump.
Tweet stricken http://twitter.com/jackerhack cycle out.
Carlton towers aka diamond district is diamonds and glasses just from outside; while inside under the name of space utilization is dark- dead dark.
Manipal is next to it else death toll would have been more.
complete chaos!
Does anybody in vidhana soudha even bother? I guess not!…. There is no one to stand up and take responsibility. Yeddi would have been spending time with his mistress minister. sic
no power, traffic jam, no water….
This is our once beautiful Bangalore… what a mess they have created, brought this city to its knees.
Ravi Menon you make a great point there….Are you Ravi Menon, my journalist friend or someone else…Let me know please…:-)
But very valid point actually….
very very sorry for those whose lives were lost..why don’t the owners/developers/builders of that complex get lynched in public and thrown into the open sewer next door?
there have been numerous instances of plan violations — widely publicized in the local press. each time the city authorities would threaten to take action, only to have their intent fizzle out in the face of (what else) huge bribes..
Sorry state of affairs. Poor families lost their bread winners and high hope.
The contractors and the Govt officials who certified the fitness and safety of this building must be Hanged till Dead so that it is a fitting example to others!
Ravi Menon..I just don’t get your points..Why you are blaming Government for everything?
# Whether building owners do fire drills every year? It is responsibility of Building owners to prepare/ready for any such incidents.
# I don’t think each floor has atleast one fire extinguisher!! First people (you and me) must change before blaming government for everything. Govt can’t protect each and every citizen.
Nine people have died it seems latest news. I used to wonder: So many tall buildings(Teqila no Aquilano towers) are coming up and do they have any emergency exits and fire extinguishers. May be we dont have any proper laws in our country. Even if we have many will be flouting them to save ‘their money or profits”
They even had the fire exit doors locked. This one thing could have saved all lives and injuries.
Hope other office buildings wake up and do some fire drills. Hope there are no repeats of this.
Namma Bengaluru.. bari oLu. bari oLu.
People rushing to use elevator during fire!
People jumping down !!
FireEngines with no water or training!!!
Building engineer with no maps!!!!
Thronging public making access to building difficult!!!!!
People working there not knowing fire exits.!!!!!!
Police with no brains only danda dangling between their legs.!!!!!!!!
Politicians blaming previous politician on building permit!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please send some of the above to moon during ISRO mission to moon.
Surely indian is going crazy with spending money on useless projects like moon by ISRO while we do not have the basic facilities to enjoy. Incidents like this will never stop. Either we(common people) are ignorant for not questioning govts and administrations or something terrible is wrong with India itself. Every third person on street is uneducated and education in villages is just crap. India has no money for farmers. even food storage and management infrastructure is just crap. people are just migrating to cities for employment and stuffed cities are dying. We can generate employment in villages , farmers can be educated for better agricultural practices, but everyone is just indifferent. Pity State Of India. Each region of india has several advantages but ………….. :(
The regulations are very much there but are not really followed. They would have bribed the engineers in bbmp and got their plans approved. Secondly we are really pathetic when it comes to emergency preparedness. We need not have hi fi technology for that. As mentioned by Ravi Menon safety nets could have reduced the death toll. As they say stich in time saves nine.
this is very tragidic I fell builders should take responsible for safety in our country money makes everything.If you bribe them enough then the govt officials will sanction the license without seeing or checking anything then common man has to pay for it.Punsih those corrupt officials who has given license to this building.
One thing that stands out in this fire accident, and several others before it, is the utter lack of professionalism in all the people concerned.
Firemen bringing empty fire-engine and then searching for water while the building keeps burning
Fire Department not being aware of safety nets and their operation.
Building owners/maintenance people either not providing or removing the signboards for fire exits; locking up the escape routes and not keeping their keys in a glass showcase and a hammer to break the glass nearby.
Tenant employers not conducting annual fire escape and evacuation drills for their employees.
Fire department certifying the building as fire safe in spite of the lacunae above.
Traffic police allowing the bystanders and their vehicles to jam the road and preventing access to fire engines & ambulances. Incidentally these bystanding worthies advised the victims to jump off the building and in a way they are also responsible for their deaths.
We as a nation neither encourage nor admire professionalism due to our chalta hai attitude and short cut philosophy, so it is foolish to expect professionalism from any profession or professional.
While talking about professions there is a profession called electric contractor and electrical wireman who are certified by a Government department. I have yet to see a certified wireman/contractor who can do proper earthing.
This profession is very important as majority of urban fires are due to short circuit, Short circuit happens due to
substandard and Hapazard wiring practices
use of substandard electrical material such as circuit breakers witch wont break the short circuit and substandard wires which cannot take the load and burst into flames. This happens due to non-professional attitude of builders and contractors, whose aim is to cut corners at the cost of public safety.
Before the advent of circuit breakers, substandard or otherwise, earthing was the means to prevent fires and electrocution due to short circuits. I have yet to see a certified electrician who can do professional earthing. For most of them earth is nothing but a loose black wire dangling merrily in the control box.
The users of the premises are no less guilty, they use a lot more equipment than their sanctioned power and expose their employees/residents to life risks due to short circuit.
It is not just about fire accidents or short circuits where people have to die due to someones stupidity. Ungaurded sewer holes, uncapped tube wells; well, I can go on ranting like this ad infinitum, but ask Kapil Sibal whether there is a diploma or degree course on what is called safety engineering in our country. Even if it is not there anywhere we need it.
It is sorry to hear the sad news and how each one could be saved, just by re-assurance from fire dept has done the job. If going through some twitter response, they don’t even have a ladder to reach 5 floors!
@Karthink
>>>don’t the owners/developers/builders of that complex get lynched in public and thrown into the open sewer next door?
What will that solve??, am afraid you should be directing the rage at plan sanction dept, who approved the buildings. Atleast that way most buildings will be covered rather than one-off.
If this incident really have to make impact, the govt of the day should do a thorough assessment of all building in Bangalore of strict fire saftey. But, am afraid this will not be done, when the next incident happen, we again will be looking the owner of the building, rather than government which allow these things in the first place. Not to mention complete lack of importance to institutions like fire dept.
While I agree that bribery in our planning agencies is quite an issue, and very likely a cause of this. But I don’t know why one idiot is bringing in the ISRO moon mission into this.
Actually the typical middle-class middle-aged hypocrite Indian will not hesitate to bribe the planning authorities to get his own residence permits approved, he will not mind flouting building bye-laws to occupy maximum space on his 40 X 60 plot, so on and so forth. And the same bunch of trademark hypocrites will crib, crib, crib about the ‘corrupt system’ and how the ‘paalitician daags’ are ruining the country.
I totally agree with Uday Shetty
Why do one blame the govt. for such accidents?
@Uday/Nirmala,
I don’t get the drift here. Agreed that Govt. alone can’t be held responsible for such incidents. However can Govt. go entirely scot free?
Who controls Fire services, Police etc who play a vital role in mitigating such a disaster by providing quick and effective response? As Babu DS pointed out in his/her message, who certifies the electrical contractors? Who sanctions the building plans and supervises the safety measures adopted? Who is supposed to do periodic reviews of the fire safety, readiness for disaster management etc?
You may say that it’s the babus who are ought to do all these jobs and hence the blame should lie with them. If that’s the case should ‘Govt’ get any credit for any good work at all? Shouldn’t it be given to babudom then? Or is it that all that is good is attributed to the Govt (read party, politicians) and the all that goes horribly wrong is due to the babus?
Anshuman,
Government is at lesser fault. Blaming government is passing the buck. If the employees there did not know that lifts should not be used, if the employees did not know where the exits were or did not have knowledge to use the staircase, they probably were already sitting in their coffins!!!
All the other idiots in that drama closed and sealed the coffin!!.
Anshuman – I will explain Uday/Nirmala’s state of mind to you. A case of victims feeling guilty. Our govt has set such low expectations that no more does anyone expects any accountability out of govt. So much so that even saving people’s lives is not its duty.
For the dumbest, of the dumber and by the dumb is our democracy. Let us at least stop shedding crocodile tears in open forums, that sounds sarcastic given kind of society we have built for ourselves.
Both governmnet agencies and individual/corporate owners are responsible, not just the government agencies alone. I am sure Carlton towers owners must have greased the palms of officers in gov. agencies well.
It is the bureaucrats who make the maximum profits in granting/clearing licences to builders/developers. and these “officers” go scot-free.
Vinay:
>hypocrite Indian will not hesitate to bribe the planning authorities
You are absolutely right. We have a huge problem of Akrama-Sakrama, which lets people think they can violate laws, and it’ll be regularized anyway. We have govts, which go out of their way to evade a court order for demolition of illegal structures, in the name of public inconvenience.
We don’t have any sanctity of ‘residential’ and ‘commercial’ localities anymore, resulting in residential localities rapidly deteriorating and people who built houses there having to sell/rent and move out to more peaceful areas.
All this happens for only one reason – We are a nation of law breakers. It begins at our home, our traffic lights and extends to our top leaders.
Even people who are upright at times give up trying to defeat them and join in.
:-(