I watched with horror, sadness, and anger when I saw the story of the Bangladesh clothing factory fire. Horror and sadness at the tragic way in which so many perished. Anger with the fact the so many people died due a lack of extremely basic facility design/emergency planning.
This was an eight story building. Reportedly the company only had building permission for 3 floors. There was one exit in the entire facility. It was an open stairwell design which funneled the fire like a chimney up through the building.
The U.S. itself had a tragic garment factory in 1911- the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. You'll notice quite a few parallels between the two events. Out of this tragedy came a focus on and codes for worker safety as related to fires. It makes me absolutely irate that people are still dying unnecessarily a century later for lack of adherence to knowledge that has been common for so long. As Winston Churchill said "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." He is tragically right in this case.
No comments:
Post a Comment