EDITORIAL - Disasters waiting to happen

It’s the coolest time of the year, but we all know it won’t last till March. The weather will get warmer as Holy Week approaches, and water sources will start drying up. This early the government must start preparing for a bane of the dry season: fires. We get conflagrations the whole year, but they spread faster and take longer to put out when water levels are low, especially in squatter areas and old communities where there are still many houses made of wood.

Early yesterday an 80-year-old woman died in a fire that swept through the government-run Golden Acres Home for the Aged in Quezon City. It took firefighters nearly two hours to put out the blaze. Arson investigators said a candle could have ignited combustible materials and set off the fire.

Old buildings are obviously the most prone to fires. A few years back, about two dozen children were killed when fire destroyed their orphanage, made mostly of wood and several decades old. The orphanage has since been rebuilt. But there are still many other firetraps especially in the old, crowded sections of Metro Manila. You can see these firetraps in Manila’s University Belt, where even shanties are being rented out to students. Dormitories have no fire exits. Some of the buildings are literally falling apart but are still crowded.

Then there are the business and commercial establishments, including moviehouses and discos. When more than 150 people were killed because the lone entrance to the main hall of the Ozone disco in Quezon City would not open, there was a lot of official noise about cracking down on violators of fire safety standards, not just in the city but throughout Metro Manila. The Ozone tragedy struck in March 1996. What has happened since then? The case is still under litigation and the fire traps are still around. The virtual coffins are still standing, all of them disasters waiting to happen.

Local governments have enough people to inspect establishments for business and health permits. Surely they have enough people to check compliance with building and fire safety standards. Before another major tragedy strikes, local governments must do their job.