Det strømmede ind med tilbud om hjælp efter katastrofen i Bangladesh, men nej, sagde landets indenrigsminister, det kan vi selv klare og vi har grejet til det – virkeligheden viste sig at være en anden og nu kritiseres ministeren hårdt.
DHAKA, 30 April 2013 (IRIN): Bangladesh must strengthen its urban search (eftersøgnings) and rescue capacity, say experts, following the collapse of an eight-story factory building outside Dhaka which left nearly 400 dead.
“This most recent tragedy highlights the need for the government to do more in the area of urban search and rescue,” Gerson Brandao, humanitarian affairs adviser to the office of the UN resident coordinator, told IRIN.
“Noble efforts were made to reach many of the survivors, particularly by volunteers, but unfortunately it was not enough.”
On 24 April, at least 385 people were killed when the concrete structure collapsed in Bangladesh’s Savar industrial suburb (24 km northwest Dhaka), trapping more than 3.000 mostly garment workers inside.
Brandao’s comments follow criticism of the authorities’ overall handling of the operation, and the Bangladeshi government’s rejection of international search and rescue offers.
These offers include members of the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), a network of disaster-prone (udsatte) and disaster-responding countries and organizations dedicated to urban search and rescue (USAR) and operational field coordination, just hours after the building’s collapse.
Bangladesh Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir defended the decision saying no help was needed because the South Asian country’s local emergency services “were well equipped”.
Overwhelmed and ill-equipped
Many describe it as Bangladesh’s worst industrial accident since the nation gained independence in 1971.
More than 2.000 volunteers and local rescue teams rushed to the scene to assist. However, they soon found themselves overwhelmed and ill-equipped.
“There is a notable gap in specialized and sophisticated equipment such as micro-cameras which can go under the rubble (ruinerne) to search for survivors, as well as scanners that can detect human heat,” Brandao noted.
He added that there was also no sniffer dog (sporhunde) capacity to identify survivors under the rubble.
In addition to a lack of specialized equipment, however, many of the volunteers, including some trained by the authorities to respond in such situations, did not even have protective gear such as gloves (handsker) and helmets.
“Rescuers were even asking members of the public for flashlights,” said one international aid worker who preferred anonymity and who visited the scene.
A wake-up call?
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http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97945/Lessons-from-Bangladesh-garment-factory-collapse
