Why three disasters in four years on festival day in, around Patna?
Patna,(BiharTimes): Never in the recent memory so many people lost their lives in three tragedies taking place in and around Patna in such quick succession on festival day. Yet nobody––even the people themselves––have not learnt any lesson.
First it was on November 19, 2012 that about two dozen people died in a stampede on Chhath day at Adalat Ghat, behind the Patna Medical Collge Hospital.
The administration was caught off guard when the bamboo bridge erected there crumbled. The people reportedly got panicky after rumour spread that an electric wire has got snapped.
Though it occurred just behind Patna’s best government hospital yet hardly any arrangement made before hand to bring victims to PMCH. Even there was hardly any doctor in the Emergency ward of this health hub.
The whole Chhath arrangement was made under the supervision of the then deputy CM, Sushil Kumar Modi, as the chief minister Nitish Kumar had been visiting Pakistan and arrived on the eve of festival.
Two years later on October 3, 2014 as high as 33 people died in a stampede at the southern gate of Gandhi Maidan after Ravan Dahan. Once again rumour of electric wire led to the mishap. The district administration was once again caught unprepared. It took place just after the then chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and other VIPs left the venue.
More than two years later, on Makar Sankranti day, that is January 14, more than two dozen people died when two motor-boats capsized in river Ganga after a large number of people were returning from ‘diara’ (river island) across the state capital after celebrating kite festival.
It is alleged that the teams of NDRF and SDRF were not immediately pressed into service. Once again there was complaint that there was no ambulance nor any other vehicle to rush the people to hospital. Like in the Chhath tragedy the victims were brought to hospital in motor-cycles and rickshaws.
The complaint may be right. But the big question is: why are the people themselves not learning from the repeated tragedies?
Media reports said that as high as 75,000 people assembled in the ‘diara’ to celebrate and all wanted to return before sun-down. Incidentally, all the three mishaps took place just after sun-set. This compouneded the problem as it is really difficult to carry out resuce operation in the middle of any river in dark.
In between the first two tragedies took place a serial blasts at Hunkar Rally in Patna on October 27, 2013, when the then Gujarat CM and PM candidate of the BJP was addressing. Half a dozen people lost their lives. Luckily there was no panic as the organizers managed the situation well.
But why is it that so many disasters taking place so frequently in and around Patna? The answer is simple. We are not fully prepared for such shows; yet we are so crazy to organize one after another. Just after the strenuous and successful Prakash Utsav the Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation organized the kite festival. Where was the use for holding such a programme in the middle of a river. And whatever machinery was available it was for the officials and their family members. Some rickety boats were left for the lesser mortals to be ferried back.
As transportation have become easy mobilization on the occasion of festivals have increased. The administration fails to estimate before hand the number of people who would turn up for such shows.
What is more, two of these three tragedies took place in river Ganga. A large number of urban people, especially women and children, do not know how to swim. So they died when they could have survived.
Yet in sheer zeal to promote tourism the administration failed to anticipate any eventuality.
