DNA Edit: Towering Inferno - Hotel fire that claimed 17 lives was waiting to happen
The fire at a hotel in Delhi, which claimed 17 lives thus far, is a pointer — if indeed a pointer was needed — that the country’s urban clock is ticking away, and unless something is done soon, more such accidents on an even bigger scale can be expected.
There is little doubt that India, particularly its urban sprawls, is in a horrible mess. Ill-planned construction, over-populated colonies, consistent and chronic flouting of building rules, and a total disregard of the most basic tenets of fire safety have led to complete chaos, which every now and then explodes into a ghastly accident.
It is only then that the focus returns to the municipal and urban mess that is India. The fire at a hotel in Delhi, which claimed 17 lives thus far, is a pointer — if indeed a pointer was needed — that the country’s urban clock is ticking away, and unless something is done soon, more such accidents on an even bigger scale can be expected.
This mishap is a case of history repeating itself, without any lessons having been learnt. The hotel, situated in the highly congested Karol Bagh area of west Delhi, had permission to build four storeys, but had constructed six. The hotel was, in fact, a guest house, which is not supposed to have a kitchen. This one not only had a kitchen, but also a bar. An audit conducted by the Fire Department had issued a safety certificate to the guest house in 2017.
Nobody has answers on how this happened. Officials say that when terrified guests tried to open the fire exit to escape, it was locked. Water hydrants were not working and the electric wiring was faulty. This situation is by no means specific to just this establishment.
Officials — now wise from the benefit of hindsight — say that there are 200 hotels clustered in the Karol Bagh area, which are in the same condition. Needless to say, all such hotels and guest houses are cleared by the fire department and other civic bodies responsible for their upkeep.
In fact, it would be no exaggeration to suggest that many buildings, not just in the national capital, but veritably all over the country, would not be cleared by the fire department, if strict interpretation of the conditions needed for the NOC are taken into consideration.
Just how precarious the situation is can be gauged from the fact that 2019 itself has seen two fires, in which residents have had providential escapes. On February 7, scores of patients and staff had to be evacuated after a fire broke out at Noida’s Metro Hospital and Heart Institute.
Earlier on January 30, four persons were injured in a fire at a chemical factory in Okhla Phase-1, south east Delhi. Tuesday’s blaze has brought back memories of a similar flare up in South Delhi’s Siddhartha Hotel (now Vasant Continental), in 1986, where 38 people had lost their lives.
The two cases have similarities, despite the difference in their star rating. Investigators had later found that some guests had jumped to their deaths, rescue operations were hampered by lack of infrastructure because there was a power failure, and firefighters, like on Tuesday, were groping in the dark. But tragically, even with so many precedents, the old story repeats itself.