The June 3 calamity – What lessons?
Mishaps do happen, and when they do, they are not only meant to make us sorrowful but also teach us some valuable lessons.
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Last week Wednesday’s calamity that hit the country has, undoubtedly, cast a dark shadow over the entire country. No nation loses its people in such a bizarre manner as happened at the GOIL Filling Station in Accra and remains the same.
That notwithstanding, we will do well as a nation if we take some useful lessons from the catastrophe. That way, we will be able to prevent similar events from happening in the near or remote future.
We believe that as a country we have not been forthright with public education on how to react when one is caught up in a building which catches fire.
It is our view that the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), the Ghana National Fire Service and the other security agencies at the forefront of disaster management must lead the charge in educating the public on the right steps to take when there is fire in a building. This will minimise, if not totally avert, any form of casualty.
We also posit that as a country we have developed the penchant for setting up committees to investigate fires that occur at markets and other places. Meanwhile, either the committees have not been able to come up with conclusive reports on what caused those fires or we hear nothing of their reports.
We concede that there is bound to be difficulty in ascertaining the cause of a fire outbreak, especially if there were no witnesses when it started. However, we must have trained investigators who will be able to use the rubble left after the fire had been put out to determine the probable cause.
The Daily Graphic believes that investigations after fire outbreaks are very important, not only to come up with what caused them but also guard against similar factors causing more fires later. If we do not conduct conclusive investigations, how will we be able to protect lives and property against fire outbreaks?
We believe that most of the disasters that have befallen us as a nation are due not only to pure negligence and non-compliance but are also the result of ignorance on the part of the populace, ignorance that can only be cured through intensive and sustainable educational campaigns.
Buildings and other structures on water courses have now become our bane, and people, for convenience, dump rubbish in drains, fill up wetlands that are meant for excess runoff water for development and the greedy use inferior and inadequate materials to build.
The injured, pregnant and sick are transported to hospitals in taxis, private cars, trucks and even on motorcycles, instead of ambulances, and this only worsens the plight of the sick or injured and leads to preventable fatalities.
We need our systems to work and laws to be enforced, so that we stop our crude ways of doing things.
We need to learn from past experiences that have not augured well for us.
We should let our calamities teach us not to tread those paths ever again!