Analysis: ‘Sitting above a bomb’: Bangladesh’s missed fire-safety lessons
By Krishna N. Das and Ruma Paul
DHAKA (Reuters) – A lethal fireplace at a container depot in Bangladesh has laid naked the hazards nonetheless dealing with thousands and thousands of the nation’s employees a decade after a collection of tragedies within the export-focussed garment business spurred a security revolution.
Intense scrutiny of Bangladesh and the foremost worldwide clothes retailers that depend on it for provides has helped forestall additional disasters within the garment sector since a fireplace in 2012 and a constructing collapse in 2013 collectively killed greater than 1,200 employees.
However in different industries, primarily catering to Bangladesh’s booming home financial system and with out an equal emphasis on security, tons of have died in fires lately.
At the very least 41 individuals burned to loss of life in a depot blaze that erupted on Saturday and has but to be extinguished. Close by containers loaded with chemical substances pose a danger of additional life-threatening explosions.
Bangladesh noticed its final main clothes manufacturing facility fireplace in early 2017 wherein six employees had been killed. However fires in different industrial settings or factories, making every little thing from followers to fruit juices, have killed at the very least 200 since then and injured many extra, in response to a Reuters rely.
“The protection is extra within the clothes sector than in different industries as a result of there may be a world compliance-monitoring system, and no compliance means no orders,” stated Jewel Das, common secretary of the Bangladesh Affiliation of Hearth Consultants that works with the federal government on fireplace audits.
“However in different sectors, there isn’t any worldwide monitoring system and the nationwide monitoring system isn’t sturdy.”
In contrast to established garment companies which have their energy techniques together with diesel mills positioned away from their factories, many different items are constructed proper on high of their energy sources.
“As a result of most fires begin from {the electrical} techniques, it is like sitting above a bomb,” Das stated.
He stated many non-garment factories additionally lack fire-safety measures just like the segregation of flammable supplies, upkeep of fire-escape routes and clear demarcation of meeting areas within the densely populated nation of greater than 160 million.
Monir Hossain, a senior official at Bangladesh Hearth Service and Civil Defence who was inspecting chemical substances and fireplace requirements on the depot, agreed that oversight was weak in most different industries. He feared not a lot would change even after the most recent catastrophe.
“Lots has been achieved to enhance the protection situations in clothes however different sectors nonetheless stay out of scrutiny,” stated Hossain.
“When one thing occurs, there are investigations however after a while, all of us neglect that. Then one other incident occurs.”
On the container depot, he stated even fundamental fire-safety measures had been lacking. There have been solely a handful of fireside extinguishers, he stated, at a website storing every little thing from garments to chemical substances.
‘NO COMPULSION, NO COMPLIANCE’
The world woke as much as Bangladesh’s hazardous manufacturing facility situations in 2012 when a fireplace at Tazreen Fashions, which made items for Walmart Inc and Sears Holdings, killed 112 employees.
The catastrophe was adopted by the collapse of the eight-story Rana Plaza a 12 months later, killing 1,135 garment employees and triggering a wave of public outrage world wide concerning the human price of low cost garments.
This prompted world retailers, overseas governments and worldwide businesses just like the World Financial institution’s Worldwide Finance Company (IFC) to behave to assist the world’s second-largest clothes business enhance security and labour situations.
The IFC stated it had established a five-year, $40 million credit score facility for native banks to assist clothes and associated factories improve their structural, electrical, and fireplace security requirements.
No comparable preparations are in place for different industries which have mushroomed because the financial system has grown a lot quicker than in lots of different nations previously decade.
The Worldwide Labour Group stated it was working with Bangladesh’s fireplace, factories and different departments to enhance security throughout the financial system.
“The teachings realized from the garment sector must be channelled in direction of centered interventions in different sectors primarily based on hazards and danger to well being and security,” it stated.
“An efficient nationwide industrial and enterprise security framework in addition to enforcement and coaching system is required in Bangladesh.”
Ali Ahmed Khan, who was the chief of the hearth division till a number of years in the past, stated Bangladesh now must give attention to the small and medium-sized industries if it needs to cease a recurrence of lethal fires.
He stated industries like leather-based items, prescribed drugs and plastic items had been stepping up exports however weren’t totally compliant with fire-safety guidelines.
“Until there’s a compulsion, individuals won’t comply,” he stated.
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das in New Delhi and Ruma Paul in Dhaka; Modifying by Toby Chopra)
