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Q: What is the difference between a posh high-rise without NBC safety protection and a slum housing cluster?

A: Both are illegal but only one is recognized as such.

But there is also a scary similarity, and that is both are prone to fire accidents with very little chances of survival of life and limb. We have seen some incidents where fires in upper floors of high rises have left residents stuck between devil and the deep sea when even fire brigades do not have ladders that can go that high and even hoses that can reach the fire effectively to douse it.

Coming to shanties and slums, they are permanent fire hazards 24X7. In big cities, we can see outdated infrastructure and loose electrical wires worn out with time and inflammable structures with plastics, thermocol and all possible fire attracters heaped into them. With little elbow space to move around, forget escape, if a fire breaks out, these are potential slaughterhouses just waiting to erupt.

At least two hundred shanties were gutted when a major fire broke out in Sector 49, Ghasola village of Gurugram this January. Around 100 shanties were gutted in a massive fire that broke out in the slum area near Lok Nayak Jaiprakash in Patna early April. The fire triggered off 10 to 12 cylinder explosions and added to the mayhem. 20 fire engines toiled hard to control the blaze. A massive fire broke out in a slum area of Surajpur in Noida on April 12. Properties worth lakhs were gutted in the fire. Fire tenders were rushed to the spot. No casualties were however reported in the incident. A gas cylinder explosion is cited as the cause of the fire.On March 13, 2023, a level-three (major) fire broke out inside the Appapada slums in Kurar village in Malad (east) in the western suburbs of Mumbai. The fire engulfed nearly 1,000 houses, as per a report.Fire tenders, jumbo water tankers and other equipment were engaged in controlling the blaze. An unidentified person was charred to death, while several families were rendered homeless in the grisly accident.  “The shanties were made of tarpaulin sheets and combustible materials like wood and plastic,” a fire official said.

The stories are plenty. These are poor families, the young and the old and ailing living in conditions unfit for animals. In monsoons, they are the hub of disease and in summers they are the lowest hanging fruit for a hungry fire. Is there a solution? Can there be one?

These are questions that cannot have straight answers, so successive governments and administrative bodies push them under the carpet and life goes on. The irony is, that at a time when India is gaining global recognition as an economic and technological global power, this is one area where we are no better than we were in 1947, the year of Independence.