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A massive fire at a private nursing home in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata killed at least 89 people in the early hours of Friday morning, and before the embers had cooled the finger-pointing had already begun. (PHOTOS: ...
Rescue workers evacuate a woman after a fire engulfed Amri hospital in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, India on December 9, 2011.
A massive fire at a private nursing home in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata killed at least 89 people in the early hours of Friday morning, and before the embers had cooled the finger-pointing had already begun.
The blaze at AMRI hospital, in Dhakuria in south Kolkata, which started at around 3:30 in the morning near the building?s basement entrance, quickly spread to engulf the 190-bed facility. Firefighters were seen smashing windows and using long ladders to enter and search the hospital?s wards, but at the height of the blaze they were unable to stay inside for more than 10 minutes at a stretch. ?The insides are filled with smoke, it has been difficult to locate the wards to carry out rescue work,? Goutam Koyal, an officer of the disaster management wing of the Kolkata Police, told TIME later in the evening. The fire was brought under control by midmorning, and by the end of the day 59 patients at the 190-bed facility had been rescued and moved to other hospitals for treatment, including several surgery patients in need of post-operative care. According to his son, 53-year-old patient Prafulla Mondol was so traumatized that he couldn?t recognize his whereabouts or remember who he was.
At 6pm in the evening the area around the hospital was still clouded over with suffocating black plumes of acrid smoke. But the political conflagration was only beginning. Calling the deaths an ?unforgivable crime? West Bengal?s newly elected Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee ordered a probe into the blaze and canceled the hospital?s medical license. Six hospital administrators were arrested on charges of culpable homicide.
West Bengal state minister for public health engineering, Subrata Mukherjee, told reporters that the hospital authorities ?did not make any effort to rescue trapped patients;? instead, ?senior hospital authorities ran away after the fire broke out.? The police too blamed the hospital administration for ignoring a warning two months back to upgrade their fire safety equipment. An AMRI representative denied the allegations, saying that the hospital had followed stringent safety measures. AMRI, one of Kolkata?s swankiest hospitals was set up in 1996 and was often ranked as one of India?s top hospitals.
Friday?s incident is being called the worst hospital disaster in the country?s history, but it?s hardly a rare tragedy in a nation where fire regulations are weak and often poorly enforced, especially in Kolkata, a former colonial capital of British India packed with crumbling, poorly maintained edifices. In January 2008, a fire in the congested wholesale market of Burrabazaar gutted 1,200 shops. Last March, a blaze in a 150-year -old building on Park Street, one of the main thoroughfares of the city, claimed 24 lives. Public buildings in other parts of the country are similarly ill-equipped. In 1997, 59 people were killed in a blaze in a New Delhi movie theater. A decade on, the families of those victims are still fighting to get justice. ARMI has promised compensation to families of the dead of about $4,000, but that?s unlikely to be the end of the story. ?[The] Law will take its own course,? says Banerjee, the Chief Minister, after the incident. ?Those responsible for so many deaths will be dealt with seriously.?
The Socialist front-runner in France?s current presidential campaign promises big changes if he wins elections a bit over two months away. Yet not only does François Hollande remain rather vague about just how he?ll do things differently than incumbent conservative Nicolas Sarkozy?or indeed, what things he?ll undo that the current president put into place?but he also seems keen to dispel any fears foreign observers may have that he?ll pursue a wildly leftist agenda if he wins the presidency May 6. In fact, perhaps the most obvious change France and the world would see with Hollande in the Elysée, the Socialist candidate suggests, is in calm and careful reflection returning to the presidency after five years of kinetic, often divisive, and frequently inefficient activity by the reform-driven Sarkozy. Despite the stakes involved in the office he?s seeking, Hollande isn?t one for over-selling or dramatizing his presidential bid.
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What I find more incredible than the authorities running away, is that the security staff locked the gates and refused to let local rescuers and the relatives in to do what they could. As a result far more people perished. It took the firefighters 45 minutes to cut open the locked gates! Where is basic humanity? Bad enough such rampant disregard of rules takes place...with flammable equipment in the basement and topped off with hospital staff more concerned with their own safety over duty...but it boggles the mind: this brutal and callous behavior of preventing rescue. Murderous.
The cultural differences among organisations get displayed prominently when such incidents occur. When Mamta Banerjee, the present CM of West Bengal, demonstrated against land acquisition for TATA's Nano Car Project, TATA decided to move out. TATA's Chairman declared his people will not work under a threatening environment. The cost of moving out is estimated in excess of US $ 300 million. Similarly, when terrorists attacked a TATA hotel in Mumbai, its employees, including the GM, stayed inside the hotel to protect their guests who were not patients. On the other hand, when Bhopal Gas Tragedy broke out, every public servant including the CM ran away. Kolkata seems to have suffered the worst. Not only that all Officers ran away, the watchmen even locked the doors to prevent entry of relatives of patients inside.
Incidentally, Official India is a creature of "Hard Evidence". Mamta Banerjee promptly cancelled the licence of AMRI Hospital on the basis of this hard evidence. No time was wasted by her in setting up an enquiry committee and waiting for its report! An Enquiry Committee will undoubtedly be set up to look into the operations of all hospitals in Kolkata, or perhaps in the whole of West Bengal, and actions will be recommended against them on the basis of "Hard Evidence".
Sad to say, but I find myself not surprised and actually not expecting anything better of the Indian people. They seem to have litlle regard for human life in all aspects of their society.
Instead of finding fault with the Govt , let the Govt at least hereafter think of future plans of infra structure development which is the reason for intensity of loss of life ; fire fighters could not reach there owing to the narrow lane and congestion of traffic where this hospital was allowed to function . The very attitude of just managing the things instead of improving land up in such situation. Where there is a will there is the way. Let us not indulge in petty politics and forget the people who are the real rulers in a democracy , that too ours like where more than one billion population which believe only in democracy not any other form of Govt.
While no one excuses any irresponsible or unkind behavior, the report does say that even firefighters could not stay there more than 10 mins. Perhaps investigation will fill in the details.
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