Hyderabad Numaish fire a lesson not learned?

HYDERABAD: After the massive fire break-out on Wednesday, Numaish stalls are up and running, though partially. However, it is important to ask if the oldest and largest open-air exhibition is finally capable of making its premises safe from fires in the future. Besides standard announcements asking traders to adhere to fire safety norms, nothing relatively concrete has been done when it comes to actually implementing fire safety. 

For starters, the road approaching the exhibition entrance is covered by a sea of two-wheelers obstructing the way of fire tenders. It has been barricaded on both the ends, making it more difficult for emergency vehicles to enter. In fact, one of the fire tenders stationed at the exhibition took about four minutes to cross a 100 m distance, which in turn, caused the fire to escalate. 

Inside the 23 acre land, about 2,300 stalls that are functioning have still not installed fire extinguishers or sand buckets as precautions. The All India Industrial Exhibition (AIIE) has been making repeated announcements urging stall owners to keep portable fire extinguishers at arm’s distance. One of the announcements even warned of cutting down electricity supply of stalls that were found to have electrical objects like signboards protruding out of the allocated space. 

But despite such warnings, stalls selling eatables and having electrical cooking material continue to function without fire safety equipments in place. Reportedly, the fire is suspected to have caused by an electrical short circuit that was not doused in time.