Frequent fires: Can’t we take lesson from the past?

It is shocking that at least 46 people were killed and over 20 others injured on Thursday night following the devastating fire that broke out at a commercial building in the capital’s Baily Road that housed several restaurants.

Firefighters rescued 70 people, including 42 in an unconscious state, from the rooftop and different floors of the seven-storey Green Cozy Cottage.

Reportedly, most of the people died as they jumped off the building or from burns or suffocation, said firefighters who brought the fire under control around 12.30am. Smoke was still brewing from the building at that time.

The fire broke out at the restaurant named “Kacchi Bhai” on the first floor around 9.45pm. Many people were dining in the restaurants when the fire spread to other floors.

Fire service officials say there were cooking gas tanks on almost every floor of the building.

There were only two elevators and a staircase in the building, with no emergency exit, forcing some to resort to desperate measures such as jumping out of windows to evade the flames. Those who could not, asphyxiated to death.

Every time a fire breaks out, we register our shock, spend a few days dissecting the flaws of the building in question, form a probe committee, file a case against the building owners at most, and then conveniently forget to hold anyone accountable for the systemic failures. Will this time be any different?

As we mourn the untimely and avoidable death of the victims, we must ask ourselves, can we really be surprised that such an incident happened?

An overwhelming majority of commercial establishments and high-rise buildings in Dhaka and other cities of the country are built without following fire safety and building codes, with our authorities ignoring or, in most cases, enabling such violations in exchange for hefty bribes.

Mentionable, after the deadly FR Tower fire on Kemal Ataturk Avenue in 2019, the Housing and Public Works minister admitted that at least 66 percent of the buildings in Dhaka city were built in violation of the codes.

However, Rajuk officials stated that the number in reality was much higher. But since then, what have the authorities done to ensure compliance?

Despite repeated and avoidable fires in the capital alone over the past decade, we have not seen any noteworthy initiatives to ensure even a modicum of good governance in public works, much less an acknowledgement of authorities’ own complicity in these killings.

We deserve an answer from the Ministry of Housing and Public Works and the city authorities about their deadly reluctance to perform their duties.