Bashundhara City on fire
BASHUNDHARA City mall (reported to be 12th largest mall in the world), was engulfed in a huge fire on March 13. Built at a cost of Tk. 7000 million, it is regarded as the most modern shopping mall in Bangladesh. It houses 2500 shops and has 20-25 thousand visitors a day. Strangely enough, such an important structure is located in a rather congested area.
The mall had the most modern fire fighting equipments (as claimed by Bashundhara authorities), but they did not work at all due to inefficient management. 7 people died, 20 were injured and 2 are missing. Loss of property is yet to be estimated.
The government deserves commendation for pulling out all its resources to extinguish the fire. All the organisations engaged in the operation have shown that with concerted and well-coordinated effort our people are capable of handling the toughest of jobs.
We are surely happy to see the sincerity, honesty and sensitivity of our prime minister, who is passing her days in great agony due to the crisis created by some misguided jawans of BDR. Once again our armed forces came to the aid of the civil administration to overcome the crisis.
The Bashundhara Group is one of the largest trading groups in the country. However, it has not been able to show its capability in constructing the building and managing it. We are expecting good quality report from the committee set up by the ministry of home affairs.
We hope to see the involvement of the ministries of home affairs, public works and local government, and the Dhaka City Corporation and Rajdhani Unnanyan Kartripaksha (Rajuk) in the enquiry.
Such kind of fire may not be the last. No doubt there has been some spectacular development in the design and structure of buildings in Dhaka. We have a fairly good Building Construction Act. Our building codes are also fairly up to date (2003).
Unfortunately, we have a tendency to ignore legal restrictions if we are rich and powerful. The committee must see whether the Bashundhara City plan was properly cleared by Rajuk before the building was opened in 2004. It is said that lots of irregularities were committed by organisations like the department of public works, Rajuk and the DCC during 2001-06. Thus, we have enough reason to suspect some foul play in the construction of this huge 21-storied structure in a congested area with narrow roads.
If this huge structure had been set up legally, the fire brigade fire fighters would not have such problems in extinguishing the fire above 13th floor. Moreover, how it was possible to build such a huge building with narrow roads around is a mystery.
The government's capacity for facing new challenges brought up by the construction of high rise buildings is poor. After the big fire in the 11-storied BSEC building, the fire brigade department could acquire turntable ladders that reached up to 11-stories. The wisdom of the department in this acquisition is not clear.
No doubt the government has no magic wand to build its capacity overnight. The immediate need is the people's cooperation to smoothen the job of this 2-month old government. The owners of all the high-rise buildings must arrange training of their security staff in fire fighting.
We have no alternative except to rise vertically because we have serious limitation in spreading horizontally. The government must apply all the rules and regulations regarding high rise buildings stringently. The capacity of Rajuk may further be built to handle pressures from external interventions.
If the government has to build a "Digital Bangladesh" it will have to modernise the fire fighting equipments, city roads, and parks, and discard the jalopies and ramshackle buildings. We have to continue to go forward with all and not with few.
The Bashundhara shopping complex incident has indicated that the all high-rise buildings must have efficient security stuff well trained in fighting fires. The real estate developers must construct buildings with adequate safety arrangements against fires or other accidents.
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