http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21571149-better-fire-prevention-should-be-memorial-night-hell
During
a concert at a club in Brazil, a member of the band set off a street flare on
stage, which caught the building on fire and led to the deaths of 235 people.
Another 100 are injured, many of which are in critical condition. A
majority of these people were students. In an effort to collect tabs and
not yet seeing the fire, bouncers first blocked people in attendance from
leaving. This surely increased the number of deaths and injuries seen as
a result of the incident. The club was also over capacity by over 300
people. The club also had an expired public-health license and fire safety plan.
In
Brazil, each state sets its own laws. A
proposal to set minimum national standards went to Congress in 2007, but has
yet to be pushed through. Enforcement will
be needed to render any new laws effective, but lining up enforcement is the
job of mayors in Brazil. Many clubs run
without licenses because of the long wait and high amounts of paperwork needed
to get the proper registration.
What
type of government policies could prevent events like this from happening in
the future? Could one form of government
control these tragedies better than another?
3 comments:
Such a tragedy seems more apparent in developing nations that lack strictly enforced regulation in building codes. When a train crash or earthquake happens somewhere like rural China, the death toll has usually been much higher than equivalent incidences in places like Germany. Part of this may be cultural, but a lot has to do with the development of institutions and infrastructure. Generally, highly developed market economies have more accountability within their institutions and are readily able to enforce things like building codes. While it is too late for Brazil to reverse this specific event, their government can use this as an opportunity to reform their policies and keep in step with their development goals.
Very tragic incident. I do agree with Anthony in that this is the perfect opportunity for the government to re access their developmental goals as a nation.
It will be interesting to see how much Brazil's policies will change after this incident. The mayors will have to take personal responsibility in making sure regulations are being followed, which might not do much. I feel that the safety regulations might be better enforced if there were more national enforcement rather than state-by-state.
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