Having attended a seminar in August last year on “Safety best practices in industries and constructions sites,” I feel like others safety measures matter the most in every body’s life. Or else it invites accidents, property losses and deaths, besides unpleasant legal prosecutions.
The SUM fire incident, Kolkotta AMRI tragedy, Uphar blaze, Cocacola incident in New Zealand, Hamilton Icepack cool store explosion tragedy etc are man-made accidents which were caused due to human lapses.
In India on an average 25,000 die due to fire and related causes where females are the worst sufferers. It is estimated that about 42 women and 21 men die every day in India due to fire. Had the fire protection measures taken, these deaths could have been prevented. There are huge economic losses where fire breaks out like in factory premises, commercial complexes, residential buildings and hospitals etc. As per the data of Fire Risk Survey 2013 carried out by Pinkerton and Federation of Indian Chambers and Industry, fire has been rated as the 5th highest risk in industry in the year 2013.
Electric faults like short circuit, loose wiring and overheating etc are attributed as the major causes of fire. Salvage operation becomes more tedious resulting in many deaths and property losses. It is quite unfortunate that we have not learnt from our similar past experiences from Kolkata AMRI hospital blaze or Bhusan tragedy in the recent past.
It is often found that fire brigades are informed late.
Apart from fire hazards, the workers have a diverse risk profile such as injuries from slicers, facing acid rain in the vicinity of plant sites, amputation of body part and illness caused by work related to stress etc. As safety and health governance is the key fundamental part of an organisation’s overall risk management function, the responsibility should be undertaken at its highest echelons in the board. There shouldn’t be any tolerance on breaching safety regulations.
In construction site, good planning and coordination is the best step to avoid injuries. During the construction work in a remote area of Jharigaon block of Nabarangpur district, a poor frame work of elevated storage reservoir caused serious injury to a mason in construction site. Furthermore, many workers suffered from malaria. It is a different thing that all the expenditure was borne by same contractor and the mason and other workers recovered after treatment. Safety and site specific health plans must be monitored keeping in view methods for hazards identification, on-site emergency procedures and sharing of information.
All organisational heads should set the process in motion by providing leadership for driving awareness about hazards and risks involved and promote greater understanding of hazard control methods and systems. They must have appropriate people and system as well as equipment in place. The firefighting equipment is imperative to be user
friendly, portable, non toxic, environment- friendly while keeping them in shopping malls, hospitals and residential buildings.
Performance aids shall be studied precisely to know about operational procedure that covers the extent of range in temperature, performance and service life. Fire in any electrical system brings serious hazards to life and property.
Moulded rubber can be placed near the opening where electric line is connected to curb blaze. Fire proof sealing materials need to be kept during cable installation. Fire extinguishers in various kinds of backpack as well as trolley mounted is available for its effective use in case of fire.