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Burning question for Kandy: Can city officials learn from fire?
Kandy firefighters cannot easily rush to the scene of a blaze in the overcrowded city because their trucks are blocked by heavy traffic, illegally-erected shops and parked vehicles, authorities revealed in the wake of a horrifying fire in which a man was forced to throw his children out of a third-floor window to the ground to prevent them from being burned alive.
Firefighters said since the family had been saved when they arrived their priority was to stop the spread of the fire. Pix by J.A. L. Jayasinghe
Pictures of Namanathan Ramaraj throwing his three children onto a sheet held stretched out by people watching from the road below, and then dropping his wife to safety, reinforced fears that mushrooming apartment blocks around the country can be deathtraps, particularly in cities where firefighting capacity is woefully inadequate.
Kandy city, one of the country’s most recognised tourist attractions, housing the sacred tooth relic of the Buddha, and a city visited daily by political leaders, is revealed to have poor fire safety precautions, with one official admitting there were not enough resources to fight two simultaneous blazes in the city.
In former times, the city, planned by ancient kings and maintained by the British during colonial times, had “fire gaps” to stop the spread of conflagrations. Now, illegally-constructed shops and buildings have sprung up in the spaces formerly left vacant, joining rows of buildings into an almost impenetrable mass.
A senior municipal official said the construction of buildings was being approved without safety inspections being carried out. Some developers illegally obtained building approval and neglected to instal basic safety mechanisms such as fire extinguishers.
Some old buildings lacked fire hydrants or fire exits.
The official said there was little attention given to providing infrastructure that could support firefighters.
Firefighters do the best they can but are under-staffed and poorly equipped, said Kandy Municipal Council Mechanical Engineer Namal Dissanayake, who oversees the city’s fire services department.
He said the fire unit has 35 personnel but only 16 firefighters were on duty at any one time because they worked shifts.
The city wanted the government to at least recruit 101 officers to the fire service department as at least seven personnel were needed to staff one fire engine.
“If there are incidents at two locations we are unable to douse the fire at both places at the same time as we are short of staff to operate the vehicles,” Mr. Dissanayake said.
There are three fire engines, two water bowsers, three ambulances, one life safety vehicle and a snorkel fire truck but one of the fire engines and a bowser were out of service, undergoing repair, Mr. Dissanayake said.
A senior officer of the fire department told the Sunday Times that development in the city was occurring without consideration for fire safety. He said the fire brigade could not even travel short distances without traffic interference.
“There are lines of vehicles at the sides of the roads as well as illegally erected shops which restrict the movement of the fire trucks,” he said.
“We ask developers to build their high-rise buildings according to fire safety regulations and obtain safety certification from us but they hardly ever do that,” he said.
The senior officer said the fire department had no authority to check high-rise buildings and take action if the buildings lacked fire safety measures, and asked the government to grant extra powers to carry out inspections.
A firefighter who was among those who doused Tuesday’s fire said it was around 7.20 a.m. when the department received the initial call saying a fire was developing at a building at Yatinuwara.
“We reached there after a few minutes after combating school traffic,” he said. “The family had reached safety so our priority was to stop the spread of the fire which could have done more damage.”
The brigade’s snorkel truck, however, was delayed as the large vehicle found it difficult to move through the traffic. When it finally arrived it again faced difficulties as its arms could not be extended because the small shops close to the burning building were blocking their movement.
Chief Inspector R.M. Abeykoon Banda of the Kandy police said he was happy that the people of the area helped to rescue the family trapped by the fire. He said police had quickly alerted the fire brigade and the electricity board to make the locality safe from electricity hazards and accessible for the firefighters.
Mr. Banda explained that because the incident had occurred during school traffic hours it had been difficult for the firefighters to reach the building.
“We were not able to stop vehicle movement in that road because there are about 20 schools in Kandy, so traffic officers were deployed for traffic and crowd control,” he said.
“After the fire was put out, we deployed our crime investigation officers and also alerted the Government Analyst to investigate how the fire had erupted. Samples of burned items were taken for analysis.
“We are carrying out investigations and collecting CCTV footage at the shops nearby to see whether the fire was a result of a criminal act,” Chief Inspector Banda said.
The Kandy police have issued a plea for members of the public who in future spot smoke or any other sign of a fire to make it a priority to call the fire brigade and police emergency hotlines rather than using their phones to film and photograph such incidents.
| ‘I thought of God and, one by one, I threw down my children’ | |
| Namanathan Ramaraj, the father who tossed his three children out of the burning building and directed his wife to safety, explained how he faced the horrifying moments when his family faced death in the raging fire.  Namanathan Ramaraj “We were saved because the people of the area were able to safely catch my three children, who I threw out of the building, and also my wife,” he said. He said it had been agonising to throw his children out of the third-storey window. “Two of my elder children, aged eight and six years, were clinging to my hands and screaming not to drop them,” he said. “I had to do it: there was no other way. I thought of God and, one by one, I threw down my children including the youngest, who was only three-and-a-half years old,” Mr. Ramaraj said. He then climbed out of the third-floor window onto a metal pole sticking out of the floor below and instructed his wife to climb down to him. “My wife lost her balance and fell as she stepped out of the window but I was able to catch her and then drop her down onto the bedsheet that was held spread out below us by the people. They rescued us,” Mr. Ramaraj said. |
| Ordinary men rise to extraordinary deeds | |
| It began as a routine working day for security officer Upali Padmasiri, stationed at the National Savings Bank, Kandy Branch on Yatinuwara Vidiya. Mr. Padmasiri, who had started work after 6.45a,m, on Tuesday after carrying out his regular checks, suddenly heard people shouting outside the bank and rushed out with bank staffer D.M.L. Kanakkarapola to see what was happening. “We first thought it was a road accident but we saw people looking up at the four-storey building nearby and saw smoke emitting from the second floor and flames erupting from there,” Mr. Padmasiri said. “There were around 15 people gathered at the foot of the building observing the situation. The first thing that struck my mind was that the fire could spread to our building, so I thought I must alert the firefighters before the situation worsened,” he said. As the bank’s security officer he was unable to leave the bank and therefore told Mr. Kanakkarapola to stay outside and keep watching the scene while he contacted the fire brigade. “I was able to get through to the fire department around 7.20 a.m. and explained to them that there was a fire in a building in Yatinuwara Street,” he said. “Afterwards I informed the police and then alerted my senior security officer as I feared that the fire would spread towards our building. “My senior officer, who was a former corporal of the Sinha Regiment, told me to inform the army camp nearby to get their assistance as well,” he said. “Meanwhile I learned that some people were in the building so I again rang the firefighters to tell them that people were trapped in the burning building but they did not answer. I rang Kandy Hospital and the Suwaseriya ambulance services but my attempts failed,” he said. While the security officer was alerting the authorities, his colleague, Mr. Kanakkarapola, headed towards the crowd outside the burning building. Mr. Kanakkarapola told the Sunday Times he saw a few people on the third floor trying to escape and shouted to them to make a rope out of bedsheets and climb down as the fire on the second floor was preventing their escape by the staircase. “The resident did not hear me and threw all his bedsheets and a mattress down. The mattress got stuck on part of the second floor and people were trying to find a large bedsheet to hold up,” he said. Mr. Kanakkarapola said he noticed that three children were among the people trapped upstairs. “I yelled, ‘Throw them – I will catch them all,” he said. “Then the first child was thrown down. I was able to catch him but the child hit my chest and I fell down, finding it difficult to breathe because of the impact, but the child was safe in my arms,” he said. Afterwards the rest of the children and their mother were safely captured as they fell one by one into a large bedsheet held out by a group of 15 people. The family was safe outside when the fire brigade and army personnel arrived. |