Fire destroys yet another labour camp in Al Sailiyah
The Al Sailiyah area witnessed two separate incidents of fire breakouts yesterday. Several single workers lost their belongings, when a furnishing workshop functioning on Street No.18 caught fire, around 1 pm.
The buildings attached to the workshop and their first floors were occupied by labourers. Many of them are construction workers.
Though the Civil Defence rushed to the scene and put out the blaze, nearly 30 single workers lost their personal belongings.
"No one was injured , but we lost our clothes and other precious belongings. While, rushing out some people even lost their wallets", a worker said.
The company authorities have arranged an alternative accommodation for the workers near their work site. The Ministry of Interior (MoI) said no one was injured in the accident.
Almost an hour ago, around 12 noon, another fire was reportedly broke out in a commercial space on Street No.26. However, the details of this incidents are yet to be confirmed.
This is the third incident of fire breakout reported from Sailiyah in a week. The first incident occurred on July 30th in Al Sailiyah where a labour camp was completely destroyed. [The Peninsula]
Are these workers given standard accommodation? is there proper health care as well? Check where their living no difference from prison yard, there is no good facilities provided there because companies don't care about their life but their income.........
From my observations and experience in the Middle East, I have noted three main causes of fires at residences especially at workers camps and I had written on this earlier also. First is the Air con. Most air cons at workers camps are running 24/7 and nobody cares to have them serviced periodically. Since the rooms are shared among several people every one thinks "its not my job and why should I pay from my pocket?" The workers also do not find the time to do so. Companies do not bother either. Second comes the Exhaust Fans which are usually installed in kitchens or the toilets. These fans rotate on a ball bearing and all ball bearings have a fixed life. I have seen even apartments where these fans run non-stop the whole year round. A point comes when the bearing eventually seize. The fan stops working and with power still flowing in, the motor gradually heats up leading to a fire breaking out. All these take place simply due to the absence of something called "preventive maintenance." The third reason is cooking inside their rooms. Most workers are housed in camps that are simply nothing but portable cabins. Due to absence of cooking facilities elsewhere in camps or the sheer laziness of not using one even if they are available, a slight carelessness leads to fires. I just hope people wake up and carry out these minor but very important actions and not just wait for anything disastrous to happen that just cause pain and misery and sufferings and loss to property and sometimes loss of precious lives.
The government should bring in regulations that could force companies or camp owners to carry out a mandatory replacement of exhaust fans say every year along with the servicing of all Air cons regularly at such camps.
Is there a common theme here ? Low quality finishing ? Faulty Cabling ?
The authoities need to investigate and the companies need to help the okers by re-imbursing for their losses - remember they should have insurance cover