Disaster: Shall we ever be prepared?

The raging inferno that gutted Nakumatt Downtown branch on Wednesday once again illustrated our dumbfounding inability to learn from past disasters.

More ominous is that it confirmed Kenyans’ suspicions that our disaster preparedness is still zero, even after suffering numerous disasters, including the fires that break out almost every month in Nairobi slums, as well as the road smash-ups that routinely claim scores of lives.

The electrical faults, which were the eventual cause of the 2.45pm Nakumatt fire, started around midday with a burning transformer causing intermittent power outages, but for some inexplicable reason, the Kenya Power and Lighting Company personnel did not disconnect the supply.

That having happened, when the fire started, the City Council Fire Brigade acted swiftly, but they soon started running out of water as the furious flames reduced a multi-million shilling investment to a smouldering ruin.

Though we appreciate that it takes time to mobilise disaster control personnel, it is worrying that there were no crowd control measures for close to an hour as gas cylinders exploded inside the supermarket, threatening the lives of both foolhardy spectators and brave fire-fighting volunteers.

Isn’t it a standard security procedure to cordon off disaster scenes to enable rescuers to work with ease besides reducing the so-called collateral damage? It would have been expected that within a short time, police units from the nearest stations would be mobilised to control the crowds.

After two hours, Police Commissioner Hussein Ali arrived in a helicopter, which only made spectators wonder loudly whether the Kenya Air Force does not have fire-fighting aircraft.

Other questions were being asked as to whether the city and the whole nation had marshalled its entire fire-fighting capacity. Suppose fires had broken out at several points in the city? The outcome would have been too grim to contemplate.

Disaster unit

Conspicuously missing were the Kenya Army and Air Force fire-fighting units. It wasn’t until two hours later when a military fire truck hurtled to the scene. Was it a case of time-wasting decision-making procedures that must follow a chain of command?

From the look of things, we wouldn’t be overstretching the truth in saying that we seem to be condemned to perpetual disaster unpreparedness.

After the August 7, 1998 terrorist attack on the American embassy in Nairobi, it took the Israelis to remove bodies from deep in the rubble, and that only minutes after their arrival. Later, a disaster preparedness unit was established in the Office of the President, but there has been little to show for it.

When the balcony of the Sunbeam Supermarket collapsed on May 13, 1996, killing scores of passers-by, the unit’s presence was little felt. Ten years later, a building under construction on River Road collapsed killing more Kenyans. Again, it was the Israelis, the British and Americans who did the dirty work.

What is so difficult about setting up a full-fledged standby disaster preparedness unit?

It is time Kenyans started asking hard questions and demanding decisive action from the government. This kind of inertia is totally unacceptable, unless we are to take it that disasters are the natural order of things and haphazard containment efforts the best this country can do.

The only saving grace is that no lives were lost. At least the Nakumatt management and proprietors of businesses nearby had the presence of mind to ensure their employees were safe.