An eager crowd is an inevitable part of any public crisis. Law enforcers have a hard time dispersing the crowd that often gets in the way of their work.
Experts say it’s much wiser to make use of the crowd and do so systematically. They also suggest immediately setting up an information centre in the wake of a large scale crisis.
The massive fire at Banani’s FR Tower on Mar 28 took more than 20 firefighting units to be brought under control. However, well before fire service reached the scene, the roads were blocked by curious passersby who stopped to witness the inferno.
Many people were busy live streaming the tragedy through Facebook while many stood for hours watching the flames significantly delaying fire service’s rescue process.
The scenario was similar at the Gulshan-1 DNCC kitchen market which was burnt down just a day after the Banani fire.
A former fire service chief Ali Ahmed Khan thinks that all the stakeholders play an important part in dealing with such crisis.
“A fire service team works at the scene of accident. So do medics and crowd control units,” he told Bangla Tribune.
“Everyone has their work cut out. It’s the law enforcers’ job to keep the crowd under control and seal-off the area,” he said.
He added that people have to be aware and act responsibly under such circumstances.
Disaster Management expert Gowher Naim Wara said that not everyone is there at a scene to watch the show. In fact, concerned friends and family often pour at the scene of accident to learn about the whereabouts of their loved ones.
“During the Banani fire there were a few anxious people in the crowd,” he said and added that these people were friends and family of those who were trapped inside the burning building.
“It’s normal that anxious relatives will rush to the scene. In such cases arrangements must be made to give clear information to people,” he said.
“An emergency information desk can be set up to help the friends and relatives with information about who has been sent to which hospital. That way the crowd doesn’t get out of hand,” Wara added.
He said that the employees of the offices in the nearby buildings which were evacuated also added to the crowd.
“It would have been better if they were asked to help the fire brigade or go home. But you can’t do something like this suddenly. We need strategies and management in place for that.”
Wara said that an effective fire defence system could be developed by involving the common people and training them in the process.
Dhaka University’s Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies Assistant Professor Dewan Md Enamul Hoque said that its time to think about how to make productive use of a crowd in order to douse fires, which seem to have become regular incidents now.
In his view, similar to the coastal areas during a storm, trained community volunteers in the residential and commercial areas, can be helpful during the fire.
“They can learn themselves and teach others what should be done in case of a fire,” he said.
People crowding into a scene of fire or accident aren’t a scenario that is special to Bangladesh only. It happens everywhere in the world, a recent example would be the Grenfell Tower fire in London. The police however, effectively controlled the crowd there.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) spokesperson Masudur Rahman says that people crowding a scene of accident must cooperate with the law enforcers.
“We always want the people to cooperate with the police. But in some cases due to the crowd we can’t cordon off an area or ensure a smooth entrance for fire service during a fire,” said Deputy Commissioner Rahman.
He added that those responsible for the crisis management face difficulties in doing their job due to the crowd and urged people to act responsibly.