mentalist

Not quite as tragic as the Doha Mall fire perhaps, but worthy of further investigation and discussion nevertheless.
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/bahrai...ched-1.1028714

Meow

'unregistered accommodation'. No doubt unsafe and a tragedy waiting to happen.

They were probably all supporting several family members back in Bangladesh.

Very sad.

Desert Dubliner

.... and the reason being?

Alexa

Indeed, very very sad. So much suffering and pain .

Boomhauer

Child victims.
But I get your point, they are both tragic and the Bangladeshi chaps likely have small mouths to feed back home.

Desert Shaikh

Because they are Bangladeshis, hence their lives are of less value.

mentalist

You obviously didn't catch the word "perhaps" in my post. The main difference is that innocent children were the victims of one fire, whereas presumably the workers would have had some degree of control over the maintenance of their accommodation. If they had encountered something inherently dangerous, they might have been able to take some preventative action. Obviously not the case where 2-3 year olds are concerned. That's all.

Bahtatboy

Contemptible, back-pedalling bullshit.

seven seas

I would like to remind everyone that I am equally shocked and saddened by every death, anywhere. Ever.

commander

OMG. reverse reverse....

What you mean is...they are bangladeshi's so really, who cares..lets use the 'they are not children' card to mask your blatant racism...

Are you not married to a darkie?

al dente

I have to admit that i do get Mentalist's point. I think it's horrific but it doesn't move me to tears like the idea of the frightened children does. That's more ageist surely? Same with the incident in Houla: I'm utterly horrified by war atrocities but killing children just distresses me further.

shiva

Someone mentioned "inherently dangerous" above. Shoot me for this but pretty much all the contractors I've ever had do work or seen working ARE inherently dangerous when it comes to anything electrical. Probably not their fault as few bother to point out that 20 power leads going into two sockets with more adaptors than I have in the entire house ( ie the freezers at my corner shop) is a recipe for fire, or that two nails do not relpace the plug on an industrial drill (seen too many times to count) or that using a hose to clean the electrical panel of an ac unit (again seen a few times) is a bad idea. The problem is that these companies employ what are basically farm labourers, give them a screwdriver and call them electricians, where is the duty of care to ensure they are trained for both their own sakes and the sake of any work they conduct under contract. What probably happened here is they were in shitty accommodation with only a couple of sockets, all of the above examples (except ac they probably had none) were employed to power whatever and inevitably a fire broke out. Their fault, well with any understanding of electrics yes but I suspect they had no idea that there was any potential for danger, poor sods.

shiva

I should add, tragic, no. Inevitable yes and will continue to be so as long as everyone wants shit built by the cheapest possible means (hire unqualified and dont pay for training) with the cheapest possible materials whilst individuals continue to skim for their own pockets by substituting the cheapest shite for even cheaper shite usually unseen (or paid off) by those signing off.

co durham boy

The client should demonstrate the constraints in the initial contract and then his representative should audit against what's set out .

It's not difficult but it's a fu**ing ballache for these people as they just cannot get their heads round maintaining procedures through regular checks and inspections. They look at the last Dirham / Riyal per man instead of overall cost per man and value added .

My present company here in Qatar along with two others have succesfully changed the labour law on space per man within accommodation . Cramming human beings into tight bed spaces for some is all about cost but it just has a negative impact on your business.

Here in Qatar the standards are piss poor , the accommodation areas and Industrial areas are some of the worst i've ever seen , it comes as no surprise that buckets of shit hit the fan all the time .

I'm afraid to say this whole region is built upon sorrow , sometimes i think that it would be just better to exit this shithole and give it up . A constant fight at all levels to educate and train people in human decency can wear you down over the years.

commander

Don't disagree as such, but I take another view. I'd like to think that young children (really young) wouldn't have even grasped the horror of what was happening prior to becoming overcome by fumes/smoke.

Sure the adults in both incidents knew what was about to happen to them...that upsets me more