At the end of last April; I published an article through the newspaper “Al -Watan” an article entitled “so that the tragedies of last summer were not repeated”, in which I warned the need for urgent action to avoid the repetition of fire accidents that abound in the summer, due to the high temperatures and their direct impact on electrical extensions, especially in old buildings.
Unfortunately, what we warned of it was not a prophecy as much as it was a reality that we see approaching every day, and over the course of a whole month, civil defense teams dealt with a number of fires, the last of which was the fire that broke out last Friday at the entrance to one of the buildings in the Nuwaidrat area, and it is dedicated to employment housing, as a result of leakage in gas cylinders.
While the Civil Defense was able to thank four people who resorted to the roof of the building, without registering human losses, the material damage affected the building and a number of neighboring cars, to raise the sound again with the painful question: How long?
It is not possible to be silent on the reality of the old buildings that have turned into collective housing for foreign workers, which are not subject to any criteria or requirements for safety, and lack the simplest ways to protect against the dangers of electricity, gas or even ventilation, as they are in short time bombs that may explode at any moment to reap lives and leave the tragedies, not God.
What makes it more dangerous is that many of these buildings are randomly divided, and large numbers of workers are often accumulated in narrow rooms, with dilapidated electrical extensions and gas cylinders that are stored without control or controls, which makes just a “spark” a cause of a disaster.
Here, there is no room for evasion of responsibility, as the concerned authorities are required to intensify field control, develop a comprehensive national plan to reassess the status of old buildings, and to ensure their compatibility with public safety requirements.
Likewise, real estate owners have a legal and moral duty to conduct periodic maintenance and ensure the integrity of the infrastructure in the buildings they rent, especially if they are allocated to collective housing, then all negligence in this aspect is a risk of human life.
Parallel to field efforts, expanded awareness campaigns must be launched across various media outlets and digital platforms, targeting citizens, workers and real estate owners alike, and focuses on how to deal with electrical appliances, the importance of maintenance of extensions, and the correct ways to store gas, in addition to identifying the measures that should be taken in the event of a fire.
lighting…
The investigations of the Nuwaidrat incident are still ongoing, and the final results were not announced until this article is written, but what does not need to be achieved is our awareness of the seriousness of the situation, and the urgent need to take practical steps and not seasonal campaigns to avoid what is unimaginable.
