Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

LATAM: Negligence, Safety Violations, Impunity to Blame for Disasters

Diana Cariboni*

MONTEVIDEO, Aug 6 2004 (IPS) - Catastrophes on the scale of Sunday’s fire in a supermarket in Paraguay are not a product of unfortunate coincidences and unlucky timing, in which a bunch of people with terribly bad luck end up trapped in a tragedy.

At least in poor regions like Latin America, and sometimes even in the industrialised North, they tend to be the result of negligence, safety code and building violations, lack of enforcement, and impunity that come together in an explosive mix, according to experts.

The death toll from the blaze in the Ykuá Bolaños supermarket in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, has climbed to at least 464.

What could have been a manageable disaster turned into a scene of horror due to a number of factors.

The store’s two owners – father and son – as well as eight managers and other employees have been arrested and face charges of locking the doors when the fire broke out, to keep people from leaving with merchandise without paying.

And the severely under-funded volunteer corps of firefighters that came to put out the fire – the only professional firefighters in Asunción belong to the national police, and work at the international airport – had only one source of water, which took an hour to even begin working.

The flames spread throughout the building in a question of minutes, indicating the poor quality of the construction, incompliance with safety standards, or both.

Asunción city councillor and town planner Luis Alberto Boh told IPS that if the supermarket had been built in full compliance with the city statutes, the fire would not have broken out, or would have been swiftly controlled.

But due to corruption, which he described as ”an endemic ill” in Paraguay, ”there are no safety guarantees in buildings,” he added.

A similar set of factors came together in Peru on Dec. 29, 2001, when an enormous fire broke out in a crowded informal market area known as Mesa Redonda in the old Lima neighbourhood of Cercado where fireworks were sold for the year-end holidays.

Just a few days earlier two fires had broken out among the street stalls and narrow galleries, but were immediately controlled by firefighters.

However, nothing was done to modify the complete lack of safety conditions in the commercial centre, which was a powder-keg due to the tons of imported fireworks stored haphazardly and handled and sold by people with absolutely no training, even children in many cases.

Earlier fires had also been caused there by exploding fireworks, in 1991 and 1997. The latter claimed seven lives.

But on that tragic day in late 2001, it occurred to someone to test a firecracker, which went off amidst boxes of fireworks, triggering an explosion that led to one of the worst tragedies in the history of Peru.

It took several hours to get the flames, which destroyed five city blocks, under control, as firecrackers went off madly in all directions and the gunpowder fed the blaze.

The Lima emergency operations centre reported 280 dead, 785 missing – many of the charred remains were impossible to identify – and 218 injured.

The disaster was aggravated by ”a high-tension transformer that should not have been there. When the fire broke out, it exploded, and the electrical wiring electrocuted many people,” accident prevention expert Carlos Musse, with the Emergency Brigades Training Centre in Peru, told IPS.

Although the firefighters saved many lives, the chaos and lack of organisation conspired against the rescue and firefighting efforts, he said in an e-mail interview from Lima.

Has anything been learned from the disaster? The government of Alejandro Toledo banned imports of pyrotechnic products shortly after the disaster, but they continue entering the country as contraband, he said.

In addition, ”fire extinguishers have been placed in Mesa Redonda, along with signs providing emergency instructions, and storage of pyrotechnic materials there has been banned. However, there are many markets, and when the authorities pull out, everything just goes back to as it was before,” said Musse.

The safety standards and laws have not changed, he added. ”The only thing that was done was to expand the budget for the firefighters, which allowed the purchase of new hoses.”

Awareness-raising campaigns have also been carried out to teach the public how to use fire extinguishers, as well as evacuation techniques in case of fires.

Experts stress that the first five minutes are crucial in minimising the damages from a fire, and that a high level of organisation and coordination is essential.

But ”no progress has been made” along those lines, said Musse. ”Companies are supposed to have a trained anti-fire and prevention brigade, but very few comply with that regulation. The authorities, especially the firefighter corps, do not use a (centralised) command system to organise the initial response.”

”No less than a dozen agencies intervene in an incident like the ones in Mesa Redonda or the Ykuá Bolaños supermarket,” he pointed out. ”Each one has its own chiefs, its own organisational chart, equipment and rules. If the command system is not applied, it is impossible to administer an emergency.”

The sensation that nothing has changed since the Mesa Redonda catastrophe was reinforced by the fact that no one was found responsible, despite the presence of several tons of pyrotechnic material in the market that was not authorised by the local agency in charge of overseeing civilian use of arms, munitions and explosives.

”In the trial, no one was found guilty. Neither the mayor of Lima, nor the officials who failed in their oversight role, the power company (that had a transformer in an unauthorised zone), or the importer of the fireworks,” said Musse.

After the supermarket disaster in Paraguay, few are likely to feel safe entering a shopping centre there.

In neighbouring Argentina, many large supermarkets provide manuals for evacuation, carry out fire drills, build special fire exits, and install ventilation. The French-owned Carrefour chain offers assurances that of the 250 employees in each of its hypermarkets in Argentina, 30 have received emergency response training.

Nevertheless, there is a widespread conviction that the state fails to enforce safety norms, especially due to corruption – such as a willingness to take bribes – among inspectors.

For example, in the December 1993 fire that swept through the Kheyvis discotheque in Buenos Aires, the sparks and resulting fire were caused by the negligence of the owners and the lack of enforcement of safety standards.

Seventeen young people died and 24 were injured. The locale had neither fire extinguishers, ventilation, nor suitable fire exits. And although it was designed for a maximum of 150 people, 600 were packed in the dance hall that night.

The courts held the owner, the building’s architect, and a public official responsible. But none of the 10 municipal inspectors who were prosecuted were convicted, and the trial dragged on so long that the statute of limitations expired for the crimes of which they were accused.

The popular Mexican night club Lobohombo, meanwhile, had already been closed down a number of times for safety violations, and only had a single exit open the night of Oct. 20, 2000, when a fire killed 22 patrons. When the firefighters showed up, they found that the nearby fire hydrants were not connected to any water source.

Survivors also said they were blocked from leaving by guards who initially demanded that everyone show tickets proving that they had paid their tabs.

The tragedy led to a wave of inspections of night clubs, a number of which were shut down.

But a blaze in the La Guajira night club in Caracas has never been clarified, nor did it lead to improved safety mechanisms. A total of 50 people died of burns or asphyxia, including 33 men and 17 young waitresses, at least three of whom were under 18.

The fire, which occurred on Nov. 30, 2002, the eve of a general strike against President Hugo Chávez, was virtually ignored by the private media, which are openly opposed to the president and were focusing almost exclusively on covering the anti-government stoppage.

The scant coverage of the tragedy was criticised by non-governmental organisations that work for the rights of minors and against sexual exploitation, because the mantle of silence that surrounded the catastrophe helped those responsible get off scot-free.

”The bar lacked alarms and fire extinguishers and well-marked fire exits, and there were more than 300 people there that night, although the legal limit was 100,” the chief of the firefighters, Rodolfo Briceño, said at the time.

Is Latin America’s underdevelopment to blame for the negligence?

”There have been flagrant cases of incompliance (with safety codes) in all countries,” including the United States and the nations of the European Union, said Musse.

But ”in countries where living standards are lower, these kinds of problems are more frequent. The worst problem is the lack of prevention efforts” on the part of business owners and the authorities, he said.

In 2002, flames swept through the Utopía discotheque in Lima, killing 29 people. The company had no municipal licence and it had received warnings of its safety code violations. It had no fire extinguishers and the fire exits were locked.

Only two employees were prosecuted. But ”the owners are responsible, because they decided not to invest in the necessary basic safety equipment,” said Musse. ”By any reckoning, only corruption could make the judges consider them innocent.”

* With additional reporting from Marcela Valente (Argentina), Diego Cevallos (Mexico) and Humberto Márquez (Venezuela).