It was a tragedy that has made every one sad. A minor girl was crushed to death due to malfunctioning of a lift at a high rise apartment in the city a couple of days ago. The electronic sensors with the lift did not work and as a result of which the sliding doors closed at random sandwiching the panicked young girl. According to reports, the panicked girl hit the ceiling of the lift while in desperation to survive the nightmarish crush. She died in no time.
The unfortunate incident obviously sparked severe outrage in the community and elsewhere. Besides the reign of a pall of gloom in the ill-fated family, fear and suspicion have embedded in every lift user. What comes up as a theme-line of the tragic incident is the quality and maintenance of such a vital part of any building or structure, particularly the high rise ones.
Though such type of accidents have not happened quite often like fire, this incident should be a waking call for ensuring quality, regular monitoring and maintenance of lifts. The wide use of lifts has become imperative as there has been a spree in vertical constructions, whether for residential or commercial purposes. In many cases, the suppliers do not care much about the standard quality, not to talk about forthwith maintenance as there is a big gap between demand and supply. The contractors or developers or even the complex owners at times compromise with quality. They go scot-free as the regulatory authority also keeps a blind eye on ensuring adherence to agreeable standards.
While fingers can be pointed at those really responsible for such accidents, there is also a greater need to ensure proper awareness about the use of such vital component. Definitely it stirs the necessity of regular technical check-ups by appropriate people which unfortunately is rare. In many cases installation, repair and maintenance works are performed by unqualified people and that makes the good ground for risks to materialise into reality.
As stated, it is pertinent to have high-rise constructions in all sectors - residential as well as commercial. It is also agreeable that lifts and escalators are dominantly important for movement of people. There cannot be any scope of compromise in this regard.
In fact, all high rise structures have a wide-spread of risks, particularly in the case of movement of people as well as for controlling fire. It is quite common to note that many high rise structures do not have proper fire-fighting equipment in place. Some have them but only as window-dressing. Regular monitoring by concerned authorities along with periodic drills by fire services can go a long away in managing the risks.
Let us not expect a recurrence of such tragedies. We look forward to the moral responsibility of all those engaged in building high rise structures as well as those who are entrusted to ensure safety of the people.
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