'System failure' again?

To fight a natural calamity is a humongous task with no certainty of success. However, there are other tragedies wrought by poor governance and a lack of timely measures. One such tragedy occurred in Malabar and claimed the lives of four. Three porters and a lorry driver lost their lives when a concrete beam and sunshade of a building owned by the corporation collapsed in Valiyagadi, the main commercial centre of Malabar.

The accident occurred after 11 am. The victims were arranging gate passes as part of loading goods in front of the Gama Enterprises godown, located on the ground floor. There had been earlier demands for action after many doubted the building's condition. The building is half a century old. It is reported that the corporation had decided to demolish it three years ago, but something stalled the process.

It should be investigated in detail what impeded the demolition of the worn-out building that the authorities were convinced posed a threat to people. There are many such buildings belonging to local bodies in the busy commercial centres of Kerala. Many among those are mostly centuries old. The government needs to give up the drudgery and urgently conduct an audit of such buildings. Dilapidated buildings should be renovated, strengthened or demolished. Under no circumstances should those buildings about to be demolished be allowed to function.

The only solace is the fact that only a part of the building collapsed and not the whole. At the very least, a warning sign should have been placed in front of buildings. A new norm is to run helter-skelter only after a disaster, to portray efficient intervention. It was not so long ago when certain portions of Kottayam Medical College Hospital collapsed, killing a bystander.

The television cameras back then showed how authorities struggled to remove the concrete debris to bring a JCB to carry out rescue operations. In Kozhikode, the old building that caused the accident the other day was not classified as 'unfit' even after it was decided to demolish it. The traders say that no one has ever asked them to vacate the building! So who is lying? Who is at fault? Will the same rhetoric of ‘system failure' be brought in this case, too? A thorough investigation into the failures that led to the disaster should be conducted, and precautions should be taken. Moreover, it is the government's responsibility to provide fair compensation to the families of those who lost their lives in this disaster.