Sadly, the $ has been held in greater esteem than humanity for many years. The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire of NYC claimed approximately 150 souls, and locked exits were noted in that analysis.
A fire earlier this year killed over 50 people in Beijing, again with locked fire exits. China hasn’t learned from the past, as over 300 perished Christmas day 2000 at a disco in Luoyang, and 234 died at another club 6 years earlier.
36 students were killed when fire swept a Moscow dormitory last year. Some years ago 25 workers at a poultry processing plant in North Carolina died because exits were locked.
Chicago’s Iroquois Theater fire of 1903 carries a toll of over 600.
We haven’t gotten any smarter about life safety, it would seem.
There has been a number of fires, indeed where safety exit doors have been locked to prevent theft/freeloading, resulting in a number of avoidable fatalities in a fire . There has been such a situation in France too, in a club. Sure, that’s awful enough.
But I wonder if there has been any case before when they delibarately locked the doors, including the regular exits, after the fire broke out. I suppose (hope?) it’s unheard of.
After thinking about it, I believe the management did think it was just a minor fire, easily put out, when they ordered the doors locked. Why they didn’t unlock the doors when it became obvious how bad the situation was, I cannot understand.
My reasoning is- If they had thought it was a major fire, then these people motivated only by greed would not have said ‘nobody gets out without paying’. They would have begun selling high end items at low cash prices and then telling the insurance companies that these items had been destroyed in the fire. The fact that they were trying to go about business as usual, tells me that they thought it was business as usual.
Why no one unlocked the doors, and why a security guard would try to shoot a firefighter, I have no clue.
People crushed towards the exits in their attempts to avoid the flames. Assuming someone with a key was still in the building (which is probable) they were either standing by the doors and trampled underfoot, or were unable to reach the exits to unlock them because of the number of frightened people in the way.
This sort of thing happens in fires when the doors are simply hung backwards (ie; opening inward) – you get a couple of people on the floor in front of them and your basically fucked.
As for shooting at firefighters… uh… beats me. That’s just totally insane.
We would have to look into the Paraguay Penal code about that one. In many Spanish-speaking legal systems, the crime known as “manslaughter” in Anglo-Saxon law is indeed named homicidio. Well, actually all forms of causing the death of another that does not meet the criteria for what we call Murder 1 and 2 (asesinato), gets the homicidio styling - be it negligent homicide, manslaughter, whatever. I do believe he will be charged with the more severe grade of the “homicide” spectrum.
As to the possibility of civil redress for the families, there is probably going to be a strong wave of public opinion in their favor, but even the best Latin American legal systems are nowhere near as generous in the civil-torts area as USAmerican courts. Some do not even contemplate contingency suits.
…
As to responsibility, even if the owners/managers did not actually give the direct order to lock it up and not allow anyone in or out, the reports hint at that the management at some point must have driven home to the guards/shift supervisors that allowing the removal of merchandise was the “Worst. Possible. Thing. Ever. …And if you even ask about possible exception scenarios we’ll fire you on the spot since you’re probably a thief too” Probably combined with the management, in order to pay miserable-arsed wages, deliberately picking just any fool off the street (I can just picture that guard who fired at the fireman: just some tough guy off the street, hired at cheap-ass wages, handed a gun with the sole order of “shoot anyone breaking in”, lacking any sense that a fireman busting the door is not what is meant by a “break-in”.)
Otherwise, my reaction is the same a Mighty Girl’s: ¡Coño! (OK, my real first reaction was “¡Puñeta!”, but the other word’s even briefer…)
I assume so much. However, if they thought it was necessary (rather than going on doing business as usual with the doors open), it’s probably because there already was some panic going on and people trying to reach the exits ASAP (and possibly actually bringing unpaid goods with them), which would make it a really, really bad move. Unless, maybe (just occured to me) they wanted to prevent people from entering while they were putting off the fire (and having people pay).
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Why they didn’t unlock the doors when it became obvious how bad the situation was, I cannot understand.Why no one unlocked the doors,
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Many possible reasons : the people with the keys were unable to reach the doors due to the panicked crowd, were caught in the fire themselves (apparently, the fire propagated very quickly, the floors collapsed, etc…), or just fled using some other exit not accessible to the public when they saw it was that bad (after the owner, his son and several guards at least managed to escape).
I thought the problem in that fire was that the exit doors opened inward instead of outward. When the women tried to get out they crowded against the doors, which couldn’t be opened while they were pushing on them. Once bodies fell in front of them, there was no hope of opening them.
With luck, he’ll wind up shoveling coal in the prison boiler room. And with every shovelful, he has to chalk a sad face on each and every piece of coal he’s about to toss into the fire. For the rest of his life.
Me, I’d rather just keep trying to be a better one.
I don’t know, but I’ve read two different novels set at that fire (different authors) and both claimed that the doors had been chained from the outside to prevent the workers from sneaking out during shifts.
Last time I was in Bangkok, a department store burned down. The store was authorized 4 (or something) floors. The owner had built another couple of floors on top of that. The additional floors did not meet fire code.
The guy had a mountain of lawyers who fought the municipality every step of the way in trying to get the building brought into line.
Anyway, it burned. Killed the owner and his family who had the top floor as a penthouse.
Of course it was here in Saudi Arabia where sixteen girls were killed in a school fire. The Religious Police kept the girls from escaping because they were not covered from head to toe.
I should point out the regular police arrested the RP as soon as they got there. Still, too late.
That was what happened at the Iroquois Theater fire. I don’t have time to find a cite right now, but IIRC the fire itself was backstage, but there was a lot of smoke; the exit doors opened inward and couldn’t be opened due to the crowd of people pushing against them. Most of the deaths were due to smoke inhalation. There were also some issues with backstage doors being locked and building code violations overlooked by bribed inspectors. The current rules about exit doors in public buildings opening out, among other fire code requirements, was a direct result of the Iroquis Theater fire.
Security guards get crummy pay everywhere.
But in South America, jobs with crummy pay often go to Native Americans/Indians.
So…let’s re-cast this with one of the many Indians who move to the city in the hope of finding work. He has little education, & come from a community that has no urban traditions. He may prefer to speak a non-Spanish language.
Did he come from a community that didn’t have firefighters?
Did the guard even know what a firefighter was?
Note: this scenario explains why he shot at the firefighter after he identified himself–the guard could have been a man whose first language was an Indian dialect, not Spanish. He might have failed to understand what was said to him.
Paul in Saudi, how do the religious police enforce things? Do they carry weapons? Could the girls have just disregarded them and gone outside? I’m glad to hear, at least, that the regular police can arrest them when they go overboard.
That explanation seems pretty far-fetched to me. While I’ve never been to Paraguay, I know it has a small Indian population.* And although security guards are not paid well, it’s not exactly the worst job around. An Indian recently arrived to a city from the countryside, who is unable to understand basic Spanish, would probably be relegated to working in the informal sector (i.e. shoe-shining, selling candy on the street, etc.).
I understand that Guarani is widely spoken in Paraguay, but not just by people of Indian descent. I believe that most Paraguayans speak both. I don’t claim to be an expert on Paraguay and am basing this on my knowledge of other Latin American countries.
The Religious Police have no uniforms, no guns, no power to arrest. They generally have a ‘real’ policeman with them when they make their rounds. In truth they seem to (mostly) be harmless.
On the other hand, if you cannot find any other job with your degree in Islamic Studies, you can sigh on as an RP and get some sort of stipend. As a sinecure it attracts malcontents and bullies. More than a few stories are told of citizens running them off from time to time.
You don’t hire a security guard who doesn’t speak the language. He may not understand instructions quickly enough to act on them. He may not understand thieves planning their theft (I don’t mean an armed heist. I mean ‘You distract the guard while I stuff watches in my purse’).
You don’t hire a member of a group who are considered lesser, to prevent theft. I’m sure the stereotype of an Indian security guard turning his back as other Indians walk out with merchandise would keep them from being hired for that job.
:eek: :dubious: