Nine people died on Saturday from injuries sustained in a fire at a nightclub in Romania eight days ago, bringing the number of dead to 41 in a case which has sparked protests and led to the resignation of the government. Two of the latest victims died in the Netherlands, where they had been transported for specialized treatment. A little over 100 people are still in hospital and more than 40 of them are in serious or critical condition, Romania’s interim prime minister, Sorin Cimpeanu, said. The fire broke out late on Oct. 30 at a rock concert in the Colectiv nightclub in the capital Bucharest. Fireworks set insulation foam ablaze, triggering a stampede towards the single exit and trapping many of the roughly 400 people inside.Tens of thousands of people subsequently took to the streets across Romania, angry at a public administration widely seen as corrupt, and the protests continued even after the cabinet resigned. It is heartening amidst the tragedy to see that in Romanian society the lives of the citizens are held in the highest regard and negligence on the health and safety of public places and buildings is not tolerated. The rapidity with which a compromised and corrupt government was undone in this case makes for a particularly ugly contrast when compared to the demonstrably zero impact such incidents, which take place with a frightening regularity, seem to make in Pakistan.
The ‘free market’ ethos, particularly as it manifests in a context like ours, has plummeted the value of human life in Pakistan lower and lower as the government and society at large have become unrepentantly apathetic to the plight of the mostly poor people who suffer and die on a daily basis in infernal conditions. The cataclysmic Sundar factory collapse in Lahore that killed more than 30 people trapped in the rubble should have been a similarly pathbreaking event. It should have enraged us at the government, at the ministers, at the labour departments, at the industrialists of the land, at everyone who prioritises churning out a profit at the expense of human dignity and safety. It should have forced us to demand changes in the way this business works, an end to the brutal neglect of local and international health and safety laws, an end to the construction of unsafe buildings, an end to employment of children as young as seven in hazardous environments, an end to virtually imprisoning workers in death traps for a pitiful pay. But this was just one of over a hundred such fatal ‘accidents’ to take place in the workplaces of the country over the past three years.
pk.shafaqna.com
