Style over safety, driven mostly by cost considerations while setting up glass structures, remains a major safety hazard as manifested in the tragic death of a woman on Monday at Perumbavoor.
Beena, a 45-year-old mother of three, died after she ran into a glass door and a splinter from it fatally wounded her at the Perumbavoor branch of Bank of Baroda.
Noted architect S. Gopakumar observed that the National Building Code (NBC) had specific guidelines about glass structures and that he was shocked by the accident, which he said was caused probably by not using toughened glass. Toughened glass does not get easily smashed, but in the event it does, it creates no glass shards causing injuries, forget fatalities. Toughening is a machine-driven heating process to harden the glass.
“While the thickness of the glass is a factor, the most significant aspect is to use toughened glass which collapses in granules just like windshields of vehicles when they get shattered. Toughened glass costs about two or three times the normal glass and perhaps is one of the reasons for avoiding it,” said Mr. Gopakumar.
He wondered why the glass door of the bank didn’t sport a wooden handle or at least a sticker, which is usually the norm, to alert unsuspecting visitors about its presence.
Glass doors, depending on whether they are fixed or openable, usually have a thickness of 6 mm, 8 mm or 10 mm with the last two specifications ideal for openable ones.
Audit proposed
G. Madhu, Head of the Department of Safety and Fire engineering, Cusat, said that while there had been instances in which people had suffered minor injuries on colliding against glass doors, the death throws light on an even greater safety hazard.
“A safety audit of all buildings with glass structures should be held to rectify anomalies,” he said.
K.K. Shiju, Regional Fire Officer, Ernakulam, said that while the NBC had guidelines regarding buildings with glass exteriors instead of the conventional wall, it was largely silent on glass partitions or doors.
However, Mr. Shiju said that from a purely firefighting angle, hard-to-break toughened glass complicated the work of firefighters looking for a forced entry.