Friday 29 September 2017

Elephinston Road Tragedy - Core issues

Coming to Elephinston Road tragedy and having faced one such instance in Andheri in 2010, my own personal observations are listed below.

1. A footbridge was much lesser in width than required by egress calculations.

2. Though Railways shall be revalidating the egress facilities every 5 years based on traffic demand as per code, I dont think anybody ever bothered to check these from age old times.

3. Country's financial capital does not find it necessary to have trained evacuation personnel or proper PA system coverage to guide commuters.

4. There is no proof that somebody has tried to check station sizing ever for increased load. All we see more longer trains and more crowd, but space increase.

5. Lastly I blame the public. Somedays ago same public was sending messages on social media for spirit of Mumbaikar in rains. Today same public ran on the bodies of their own kind. Such public can create havoc in any place. Crowd management is poor in country. Stampedes like these show the animal behaviour of the public which is due to lack of right social education even in our best of schools.

Public blames govt. Govt. is by public. Public governs. Same public is in railways, same public is in govt and same public does the construction and management of public facilities.