Safety, Health and Environmental Issues in My Country

This blog relates to the fire and safety issues in Pakistan. Actually work place safety and health issues are the major problems of every developed and underdeveloped country including Pakistan. In the UK accidents kill over 8000 people a year. Over six million people are injured, many of them seriously. More than 2 million people suffer from work related ill health. Same as the fire incidents in Pakistan kill 16,500 people and leave 164,000 injured or disabled every year across the country.

 

Let’s have a look on some major fire accidents happened in Pakistan in last few days.

Fire at Lahore Development Authority (LDA)

A fire erupted at the LDA plaza situated on Lahore’s Edgerton road killed eight persons, and many injured. The fire erupted around noon started on the 7th and 8th floor of the building and rapidly engulfed three more floors.

A man reportedly fell from the seventh floor of the 13-story building while escaping the fire and died on the spot. Similarly, two others jumped out in hope of escaping but later succumbed to injuries at the hospital.

School bus fire kills 18 children in Gujrat

At least 18 children and a teacher were killed when their school bus caught fire in Gujrat. Blast caused by a spark as driver of the dual-fuel van tried to switch from gas to petrol. It was also reported that driver also kept petrol in a plastic bottle as reserve fuel. This accident was happened when school vehicle was a few kilometers away from school. The age of children’s were 5 to 15 years. The driver fled and left the van in flames.

Fire in a garment factories of Karachi and Lahore

Garment factories in the Pakistani cities of Karachi and Lahore caught fire on 11 September 2012. The fires occurred in a textile factory in the western part of Karachi and in a shoemaking factory in Lahore.

The fires are considered to be the most deadly and worst industrial factory fires in Pakistan's history, killing 257 people and seriously injuring more than 600.

 

Costs of accidents

Before starting to fine the root cause of these accident let’s have a look on the cost of the accident. Majorly there are two types of accident costs.

1. Direct costs of an accident

Direct costs are those costs that are accrued directly from the accident. They are quite easy to calculate the damages, repair/maintenance, and include the medical costs incurred and the compensation payments made to the injured workers. Direct costs are usually insurable by businesses.

2. Indirect costs of an accident

Indirect costs are the less obvious consequences of an accident that can be coasted. While the indirect costs created by accidents are hidden, they too must be paid from profits from the sale of products. They are more difficult to calculate and tend not to be insured. Indirect costs include:

1. Physical and mental stress on the victims and their families.
2. The cost of damage to materials or equipment involved in the accident.
3. Bad impression in market.
4. The cost of wages paid to the supervisor for time spent on activities related to the accident. This includes caring for the injured, investigating the accident, and supervising the activities necessary to resume the operation of business. All of these activities will disrupt the supervisor's productivity;
5. Costs associated with instructing, training, and repositioning employees in order to resume production. In some cases, it might even be necessary to hire a replacement with all the associated hiring costs.
6. Medical costs paid by the employer that are not covered by the insurance. This may include treatment facilities, personnel, equipment and supplies.
7. Cost of managers and clerical personnel investigating and processing claim forms and related paperwork, telephone calls, interviews, etc.
8. Wage costs due to decreased productivity once the injured employee returns to work. This is due to restricted movement or nervousness/cautiousness on the part of the injured employee and time spent discussing the accident with other employees etc.
9. Costs brought about from any enforcement action following the accident such as prosecution fines and costs of imposed remedial works.

Root causes of these accident

There are several factors that exacerbated the situation leading to the loss of life. Mainly there are two main reasons of accidents. One is unsafe acts and second is unsafe conditions. Some detail of these two major factors are given below.

• The lack or unavailability of fire gadgets such as fire and smoke detectors, alarms, automatic control system, fire hydrant system and fire extinguishers etc.
• Congested traffic routes which causes delayed the first responding agencies like fire fighters, rescue, and medical etc.
• Failure of Law and enforcement agencies.
• Taking Shortcuts: To complete the job faster and more efficient we take decisions, but do time savers ever risk your own safety, or that of other crew members? Short cuts that reduce your safety on the job are not shortcuts, but an increased chance for injury.
• Over Confidence: It’s good to be confident, but overconfidence attitude can leads toward accident.
• Faulty electric equipment’s or faulty flexible cords
• Incompetence
• Lack of knowledge and trainings
• Ignoring Safety Procedures
• Starting a Task with Incomplete Instructions
• Faulty or inappropriate equipment’s
• Failing to use the appropriate protective equipment’s
• Unsafe working procedures
• Unavailability of escape roots

These accidents are not the isolated events and in my point of view main causes of these accidents was only negligence. This negligence may be from the owner of factory, law and enforcement agencies, person who was driving the van. In our miserable state which is operating without any proper enforcement of safety regulations and law these civilians will be entrapped and their families have to bear all these situations until above said conditions were not eliminated. Our country should take prompt measures to ensure the safety and security of its people. Millions of lives lost because due to negligence of some people reflect the failure of the state’s machinery. Now what matter is, how hard is it to prioritise the invest in the services that matter related to the public safety in normal life as well as on their work place.