The recent subway disaster in Daegu, South Korea caused serious loss of life. Since the Taipei MRT system is gradually becoming part of the daily life of area residents, we have to ask what lessons we can learn from that fire.
Among natural and man-made disasters, fire is one disaster where loss of life and property can be minimized by a little hard work. All fire prevention work, however, includes two factors that are difficult to overcome and control, and both these conditions were present in the Daegu subway fire.
First, architectural designs have gone beyond what disaster prevention and relief can handle in terms of height and underground construction. Second, various kinds of dangerous substances are in widespread use and easy to acquire and carry around.
As far as architectural design goes, the Daegu fire occurred underground in a confined space. There were other disadvantages, such as a great number of people crammed into that space and a limited number of exits. These factors of course led to a manifold increase in the difficulties of the rescuers. Under such circumstances, fire rescuers have to give priority consideration to issues such as difficulty in lowering high temperatures and eliminating the thick smoke.
However, demanding that the MRT authorities rely on fire safety design to provide effective means for eliminating smoke and lowering temperatures prior to the occurrence of a disaster is preferable to relying on fire rescuers once a disaster is in progress.
Should a person get caught in this dangerous situation, they should immediately try to find all objects possibly containing fresh air, such as plastic bags, large backpacks or empty containers, and then stay low to the ground, doing everything possible to gain the time necessary to wait for rescuers to arrive.
When travelling by MRT, people should also take note of and familiarize themselves with where in the train car the fire extinguishers and emergency hammers are located, so that they can calmly handle an accident.
However, most fire-prevention equipment designs are aimed at dealing with accidental fires and are often useless against arson. In Daegu, one man with a container of flammable liquid was able to cause injury or death to hundreds of people. Such acts of violence are difficult to guard against.
Taiwan's small area and dense population has led to a development toward higher buildings and underground facilities. Chemical substances also abound on the market.
Some of the things that we have learned from the Daegu disaster are the importance of adopting a approach to arson prevention by uniting judicial, prosecutorial, police and fire-prevention agencies through technological integration, and by getting the insurance and fire-prevention industries to create an agency in charge of arson prevention as soon as possible. There should also be widespread and continuous public information campaigns about fire prevention, and escape and rescue in confined spaces.
Chen Chin-lien is professor and chair of the department of fire service administration and science at the Graduate School of Fire Science and Technology,Central Police University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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