Surat coaching classes fire

This post is about the fire in Surat, Gujarat that left atleast 19 students dead. Mostly teenagers, died either due to suffocation or jumping off from the complex. What surprises me is the way the emergency services responded to the fire. They arrived exceptionally late as seen with most incidents in INDIA. The fire tenders did not have long ladders to reach out to douse the fire and were not able to rescue those kids in time. Some of them include a child were seen jumping off the building in order to save their lives. A lot of them could have been saved if the emergency services would have responded sooner. A city like Surat which is the worlds leading centre for processing diamonds does not have basic fire fighting mechanisms placed or enforced in commerical establishments. This is not just with Surat alone. Almost every other city in INDIA is like that.

Fire safety in India is often neglected leading to devastating tragedies with alarming frequency and our ministers and officials do nothing but express condolences and anguish over such incidents. They fail to act every single time. There is total lack of safety culture in INDIA. Nobody is really concerned about safety, that's the tragedy.

On an average around 60 people die because of fire related incidents in INDIA daily, Thats roughly over 20,000 a year with Maharashtra being the number one state in the number of recorded deaths. Maharashtra and Gujarat, two highly-urbanized states, account for close to 30% of the country’s fire accident deaths. Fire tragedies have been on the rise in recent years across the nation and it's mainly because Commercial and Residential spaces, Restaurants, public spaces etc are yet to comply with fire safety norms and take measures to deal with fires of such magnitude. The brutal truth is we haven’t learned our lessons from major fire incidents like the Uphaar Cinema fire in 1997 or the most recent fire at Kamala Mills. Every fire-related tragedy underscores the need to make fire safety a priority in our country.

The people that die every year due to such fires can be saved through awareness, through action and addressing the disconnect that exists among policymakers, citizens, and private entities and in establishing strong public-private partnerships.

The government must ensure that the fire safety norms are followed strictly and also make sure the emergency services respond in a timely manner as every second counts and every life matters.

My condolences to the families of the deceased. May their souls rest in Peace. _/\_

Hoping the injured recover soon. _/\_

Jai Hind _/\_

#SuratFire #SuratTragedy #Surat