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| 90% hospitals, schools, hotels san fire fighting system | | Govt orders fire auditing of major hospitals | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
Srinagar, Jan 1 (KNS): With a drastic increase in fire incidents in valley owing to harsh winter, Fire and Emergency Services department has made a shocking revelation that nearly 90 percent of the hospitals and government owned school buildings are at high risk of catching fire with no fire fighting system in place in these buildings.
“Some District level hospitals are at high risk and hundreds of patients could loose their lives in case of accidental fire,” revealed a fire services official to KNS, wishing anonymity.
Pertinently after the devastating fire incident in MMRD hospital Kolkata in which nearly hundred people most of them patients lost their lives due to inadequate fire fighting system, Jammu and Kashmir government decided to conduct thorough fire auditing in 34 hospitals across the state.
A formal circular was circulated from the Director General Fire and Emergency services on the directions of MoS Home Nasir Aslam Wani vide no. PS/DGF&ES/FP/2011/103-08 recently, a copy of which lies is with KNS asking all the Dy Directors of the department to conduct a fire audit of identified hospital in their jurisdiction within a week’s time.
Sources told KNS that the Fire department was astonished to know that more than 90 percent of the hospitals and nursing homes (both government and private) had no fire fighting system in place thus risking the lives of thousands of Patients.
More shockingly some of the district hospitals were found too congested to be declared safe. Sources revealed to KNS that most of the hospitals have flouted the fire fighting norms.
According to NBC (National Building Code) an underground water storage tank with at least one lack liter capacity is a must for a hospital. However, sources say that during the fire audit most of the hospitals were seen without these water storage facilities.
Even some of the hospitals including the district hospitals do no have the first aid fire fighting system in place which means that hundreds of patients could fall prey to the devastating fire accident.
“Some hospital are constructed of wood and shockingly there is not even a small fire extinguisher installed,” a senior officer of the Fire and Emergency department told KNS wishing anonymity.
Meanwhile, in District Baramulla the department while conducting the fire audit revealed that the district hospital Baramulla is also at high risk with no fire fighting system installed in the complex.
Official sources revealed that the department has raised concern over the safety of patients in old hospital building.
“The present structure is under no means acceptable for housing a hospital. The Dy Director Fire services is understood to have written to his higher authorities after conducting the fire audit of the District hospital complex in Baramullah town. The report has clearly indicated that the electric fitting and wiring system in the hospital is so much in hazard that only ‘GOD’ can save the patients in case of accidental fire,” sources said.
They told KNS that the report has warned that even a small outbreak of fire can turn into a huge catastrophe in the one hundred bedded hospital which houses almost 17 departments in its old designed three buildings.
KNS has learnt that even the newly constructed hospital complex in Baramulla is not meeting the NBC norms. It has been reportedly mentioned in the report that though there are in built fire fighting systems put in place but surprisingly none of them are connected to water sources thus making them just a show piece.
Sources told KNS that even in the tourist resort of Gulmarg most of the hotels and huts are at a large risk of creating havoc. “Most of the hotels are made of timber and have almost no fire fighting system,” an official of the tourism department to KNS.
He said that there is just one fire tender in the ski resort which remains even cut off from rest of the valley during heavy snowfall. Sources said that it is highly unlikely that a single fire tender could be sufficient to handle control the fire in case of any emergency.
Meanwhile, most of the school buildings in valley are without fire fighting system which has put the lives of school going children also on risk.
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