Page 43 - Insurance Times December 2023

diesel, motor oil and wooden furniture store room and the fighting appurtenances are on spot, it can reduce the
fire started from there. volume of fire and smoke, or may extinguish and chuck out
the smoke quickly, and thereby, can save the lives of patients
Fire feeding materials: All the floors accommodated with especially in the upper floors. Information reached the fire
hospital needed common hazard materials for speeding the professionals after two hours of burning; the reaching of
fire very rapidly as the contributory factor. building by firefighters took another two hours due to
morning traffic congestion. If the information is given on
Fire spread: The building having basement, ground + six time, they might have reached on time; extinguishment of
floors. All doors, windows, exterior finishes are constructed fire, large number of lives saving might have been done
by glass materials. The exterior glasses are not opening or thereby.
breakable easily to make the passage of fire-fighting. The
fire sprinkler, fire smokers, vent opening on the top are not D. Stephen Court Fire Tragedy - Kolkata
provided. As soon as the fire started due to combustible A fire broke out in the historical building, Stephen Court, in
materials in all floors thick density of dark coloured smoke, Park Street, on March 23, 2010. It killed at least 42 people.
fumes and toxic substances produced, it starts to move Apart from the fire brigade took around 80 minutes to reach
basement to upward direction along with the fire flame. the spot, there were no proper fire escapes, and the exit
Chucking out of smoke from building to outside took four from the roof was also blocked with the gate to the terrace
hours after breaking the glasses by the fire professionals. being locked. The people on higher floors perished for they
The fire spread was very high in the building. were trapped with no way out. To add to the woes, the sky
lifts, which were supposed to be used for the rescue
operation, had been stored far away in Behala and Salt Lake,
at that point of time and fire-brigade took one-and-a-half
hours to reach the site resulting in more deaths. The
building was old and proper maintenance for electrical lines
had also not been done.

E. The Srirangam Marriage Hall Fire Tragedy -
Tamil Nadu
This fire disaster occurred on January 23, 2004 in the
Padmapriya Marriage Hall in Srirangam. A short circuit in
the electric wire connecting the video camera resulted in
the thatched roof of that hall catching fire, resulting in the
Spot photo -This photo shows the fire flames and the smoke death of 57 people attending the wedding, including the
reaches from basement to all the upper floors. groom. Temporary power lines to the unauthorized
makeshift arrangements that were the major reasons of
Reasons for major lives losses: As the cubical shape of that fire incident. No prompt escape/evacuation was made
building without proper ventilation, the fire flame makes the possible there.
building inside very hot and the smoke covered the entire
building and blocked all escape routes. As the patients there F. Kumbakonam School Fire - Tamil Nadu
cannot make their way out due to suffocation, breathing In Krishna school building fire accidents, 94 school children
difficulty, vision obscurity mainly succumbed to death. lost their lives in a fire that occurred in a school at
Kumbakonam in Thanjavur District of Tamil Nadu on July 16,
Failure aspects: Provision of minimum requirements of 2004. The fire occurred in a building where a nursery, a
firefighting appurtenances, housekeeping, security primary and a high school were running amidst other
arrangement, disaster management by the hospital residential properties. Lack of open space, with closely
management and evacuation procedures totally failed. located classrooms, a very small exit gate, and make shift
thatched roofs and lack of ventilation were some of the
Solution for betterment: If the building might have been reasons for such a high casualty rate. With 900 students on
provided with proper vent opening and the required fire- roll call in a very small place, and no disaster management

The Insurance Times December 2023 39