Appointment with danger

Shocking news stories come to light almost every day here and this tendency has made our people too busy to decide which dreadful experiences are worth learning from to prevent future disasters.

To mention a few consequential news items since last week: there were hair-raising stories about the finding of buried fetuses, the victims of illegal abortions; a fire at Bank Indonesia's new building; rumors about President Soeharto's death and the subsequent fall of the rupiah against the U.S. dollar.

These stories followed the ugly news about haze, monetary turbulence, a plane crash and other adversities. In such a climate the people seem to believe that they should prepare themselves for more unpleasant news.

In this situation, just several days after the fire at the unfinished tower of the central bank, still few care to talk about it although the tragedy claimed 15 lives, nine of them in lifts.

The cause of the tragedy is still under police investigation, but since so many buildings have been struck by fire here -- including parts of the National Police headquarters in January 1996 -- unanswered questions still hang in the air. Why after the fire at Bank Indonesia had been spotted was the electricity not immediately switched off? This would have prevented many people jumping into lifts -- which later turned into infernos -- to escape. Surely if the panic-stricken people had been trained in fire drills they would have known to run to the fire escapes.

How true was the statement by an official watching the fire fighting there that the use of helicopters in an effort to rescue trapped workers and fight the fire actually made the conflagration worse because of the wind caused by the rotors? Was it really an arson attack? Merdeka daily reported on Tuesday that about half an hour before the fire broke at 9 a.m. its editorial office received a telephone call from someone who claimed he and his five colleagues had set a fire at Bank Indonesia on Jl. MH Thamrin.

Did the bank officials in charge of the construction of the tower carefully supervise the blueprints and focus their attention on building safety to provide enough opportunities for employees to escape in case of fire? Did they use building materials strong enough to withstand fire? Did they check whether the developer carried out the job as ordered in the planning? Were extinguishers ready around the clock on each floor on the day of the disaster? Were fire exits clearly marked for everybody to see and located not too far from the lifts?

Further questions include: Why have people been reluctant to learn from deadly fire tragedies? Have there not been too many complaints already about a lack of workable fire prevention systems in high-rise buildings? Aren't we aware that there are a lot of careless building owners with the result that fires are sparked from electrical short circuits, and there is an absence of decent fire escapes?

There has also been lack of responsibility on the part of city officials in charge of regular supervision of fire prevention equipment in public buildings. No violators have been punished in any fire accidents and the building owners' stubbornness has made the city's fire inspectors reluctant to carry out their jobs. The city public order office always frets about the lack of staff to carry out supervision jobs at public buildings but they always have enough officers to conduct regular raids to round up prostitutes.

With this kind of attitude this country has in fact made an appointment with danger and when this appointment is kept the cost will be far too expensive.