Karachi Timber Market Fire: A knock on collective responsibility

Dr. Moin Uddin
December 30, 2014

Two days back it was saddening to see Karachi timber market burning to ashes in less than 10 hours. The provincial government of Sindh is still pondering on the estimation of direct losses in shape of timber lost but also the affected people who were directly related to timber trade and needless to say about the plight of the unfortunate people who lived in vicinity of timber market. The scenes of people crying for fire help in the middle of night was depressing as well as raises certain questions about our collective social responsibility towards health and safety aspects of business, trade hubs, clusters and civil society residing on the fringes of these areas. As always we see government announcing a meagre sum of Pak Rupees One Hundred Thousand for each affected person and our one and only Malik Riaz, Chairman of Bahria Town offering much heavier sum than the government as a support to affected people. Although the purpose here is not to compare the difference between public support and private wealth but it raises a serious question on state’s responsibility of raising to the occasion. We also see Abdul Sattar Edhi being robbed and again Malik Riaz donates a heavy sum to Abdul Sattar Edhi as a compensation. [A disclaimer for information! I do not work for Malik Riaz or his enterprises.]

Before one could recover from the tragic footage of the Karachi timber market footages of Anarkali market went viral on the media. Although cause of Karachi timber market fire yet not determined for Lahore according to initial witness reports at Lahore Anarkali market where a four-storey Al Khalid Plaza had a short circuiting the likely cause of the fire in the Al Kareem Market area of New Anarkali where mostly electronic items are manufactured and sold. Medics and officials confirmed that 13 people – including a woman and a child – were killed. They said most of the fatalities occurred due to suffocation. Ironically in fire related hazards people die more from smoke than actual heat.

Every year we see a major incident like this attracts eye balls on television headlines and then fades away in our memories. We see media covering the threadbare details of the incident, on site interviews but unfortunately very less attention or interest is given to the areas of health and safety awareness or policies. As a nation there is always a bad incident which brings us into fold and in so called cliché ‘brings everyone on the same page’ but in terms of health and safety our society has not yet progressed to the level where we take these loss of life numbers as human beings who lost lives and whose lives could have been saved had measures were taken on health and safety planning. In a way the whole society is responsible for loss of such precious lives.

Based on my experience and education in health and safety planning mostly in the corporate organizational context needless to say in Pakistan not even basic foundation has been laid by the government. In the list of state priorities, it is not even a remote priority.  State so far has not been able to come up with a national occupational health and safety policy. Pakistan is one of the few countries where there is no national health and safety policy more so in the areas where there are some direct or indirect relevance to health and safety we see that the laws are old, inadequate and do not address the current requirements.

In the context of health and safety it is either the labour related laws like Factories Act 1934 or other sector based acts where we find very minimal or no relevance to modern health and safety requirements. Needless to say that as a state Government of Pakistan has still to ratify the ILO conventions on industrial and occupational health and safety.  According to a report, a labour in Pakistan is eight (8) times more exposed to occupational risks as compared to a labour in France. More exposure to occupational dangers means more risks of being affected through injuries.

Fire incidents especially of industrial nature are considered to be one of the most disastrous events which have both incidences of human losses as well as huge financial consequences. In Pakistan fire safety is a provincial and most of the times municipal subject. The urban civic authorities are responsible for fire safety and regulations. Larger buildings of public or commercial nature are legally bound to obtain a completion certificate which also entails detailed life and fire safety inspection of the buildings and the civic authorities issue a certificate of compliance. Unfortunately in practice the civic authorities themselves are not adequately equipped both in human resources as well as on equipment to fire fight in an effective manner. The fire incident at Lahore Development Authority Plaza is a tragic example of the ineffectiveness as well as incompetence of civic authorities to fight fire. Ironically LDA is the authority that is responsible for fire audits, inspections, approvals and firefighting. The absence of emergency exits in the LDA building which caused death of eight people speaks about the awareness on health and safety matters of the authority. If the monitoring and controlling agency for fire cannot be fire resilient then it raises serious questions on the effectiveness of the implementation of fire safety regulation on general populace. There is a great need for training and equipment which can provide timely response in metropolitan emergencies like Fire. Civic authorities like Capital Development Authority, Lahore Development Authority and Karachi Development Authority should remodel and revamp their fire safety departments. No building permit should be issued if there are no fire fighting systems or close hydrants available. Building owners and business unions of plazas should be asked to retrofit the building according to national fire code. At present we see that civic authorities having a maximum capability under best cases to fire fight upto five story buildings issues the permit for more than twenty story buildings. The mismatch between firefighting capability of the civic authority and building approval processes should be addressed.

We are a nation of emergencies and only respond when there is an emergency. There is a need for strong policy and legislation at the federal level on health and safety. Provinces and municipalities can further draw down from the broad health and safety policy and make effective plans to counter civic emergencies. It calls for the collective social responsibility both at individual as well at state level which can save precious human lives and save property worth of billions. 
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