The entire burden of transporting the dead and the injured was borne by private and Edhi ambulances. The KMC and local administration had no clue. What would have been the tragedy if the number of dead and the injured had been in thousands as it happened in recent earthquake?
These above mishaps loudly speak that the Karachi city of over 12 million people is not adequately equipped to deal with such emergencies.
WHAT IT NEEDS IS:
a) To make buildings earth-quake proof and resistant;
b) Rescue operations should be speedy and sufficient;
c) Efforts of the local administration and federal government be co-ordinated;
d) Most urgently required is the Disaster Management Agency on the pattern of USA's Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA]. It should be set up to deal with such calamities so that the country may not be caught unawares in case of any disaster. Its formation should be expedited and a strategy be worked out as a matter of urgency;
e) Fire Brigade Department should be updated and modernised, as at present it is obsolete. It, at present, has very insufficient fire tenders, fire stations, ambulances and only one snorkel. According to international rules, there should have been one fire station, with four tenders for every one hundred thousand persons and for the present population of Karachi, there should have been at least 110 fire stations [now 10] and 440 fire tenders [30 only].
Two ambulances and one snorkel should be at each fire station. [Now total 3 ambulances and one snorkel].
Therefore, the duty of new elected Nazim should be to equip the system of fire fighting on a high priority. Without adequate fire stations and its appendage all rescue efforts in an emergency would be futile.
If the city Nazim feels that he is confronted with short of funds for modernising the system of fire fighting, then I suggest that he should approach personally all financial institutions, like banks, leasing companies, modarbahs, insurers, mutual fund companies, Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Trade, Karachi Stock Exchange to donate not cash but fire tenders, ambulances, snorkels, suction and jetting machines, gas detectors, fire extinguishing suits for fire-men, turn table ladders, snake-eye video camera, thermal imaging camera, super compact mobile power pack, telescopic spreader, high performance telescopic rams, lifters having a capacity of 24 to 59 tons, jack ram for lifting up beams of 30 tons and having capacity of up to 59 inches, hydraulic premium cutter, excavator with tyre and twin capacity hammer, excavator with chain [crawler] and such like other equipment.
It is, therefore, high time that we should learn a lesson from the recent earthquake and start revamping the existing obsolete and deteriorating fire-fighting set up, which is a first step towards strengthening the emergency system.
The Civil Defence Organisation, [CDO] which used to play a prominent role in such eventualities, has been the victim of negligence for the last three decades; and thus, its performance has become almost redundant. Its strength of registered volunteers is now just 500 for a city of over 12 million population.
Therefore, it is the duty of the CDGK that it should reorganise the CDO on modern lines so that CDO may co-ordinate with fire Brigade Department and Karachi Building Control Authority and in this way, remove the causes that may generate the miseries for the people of Karachi in the event of earthquakes, bomb blasts and oil-spill at sea beaches and floods.
Now as such a survey may be conducted by the above agencies in respect of those buildings which are vulnerable to tremors so that some remedial measures may be taken to strengthen the weak portions of these vulnerable buildings.
Last but not the least when the recent quake struck, there was no civil defence infrastructure. The only people performing search and rescue operations were the ordinary people.
They had no sniffing dogs, snake-eye cameras and vibraphone sound which the team of Rapid UK brought to save the people trapped under the collapsed buildings. If we had the Rapid Pak on the pattern of Rapid UK, we could have saved almost all persons trapped beneath the twisted rubble of fallen schools, hospitals and homes.
This Rapid Pak would have been established after the December 1974 devastating earthquake in Kohistan district, which wiped out thousands of villages and killed thousands of people. But we failed to do so. We know that such an organisation require substantial finances but we should not be deterred by these handicaps because when the protection of our VIPs come, we do not hesitate to expend in the latest bullet-proof cars and high-tech jamming devices.
Therefore, the same keenness should be applied in disaster preparedness in order to safeguard our countrymen.
The earthquake of the 8th October is the wake-up call for our federal and provincial governments to prepare themselves better on the country-basis for the next disaster.
On l2th October, as reported in a leading newspaper, the National Security Council met under the chairmanship of President Pervez Musharraf, have decided to set up a 'National Disaster Management Agency' [NDMA] under the direct supervision of the Prime Minister.
It is hoped that this much needed proposal would materialise very soon, as it is the dire need of the country for quite sometime. I am afraid, it would not be swept under the carpet as normally is being done by our governments when the urgency disappears.
(Concluded)