The explosion on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taichung on Thursday is different from the fire that occurred at an under-construction PX Mart processing facility in the city on Dec. 19 last year, because the former was more than an issue of worksite safety. It involved shoppers and diners inside the building, and pedestrians walking on the street, impacting public safety more broadly. Responsibility for the explosion should be elevated to the government and not limited to the construction contractors and enterprises involved.
Consumers should be especially careful when construction work is under way, as confined spaces such as malls and factories not only carry an outsized disaster risk, but the occurrence of such a disaster could affect many more victims. It is necessary to bring in resources to enhance management, as well as carry out risk control. Small-scale contractors should not be allowed to solely rely on their knowledge and capabilities to conduct fire or explosion prevention measures.
The key to mitigating disaster risks rests with the owners of contracting businesses and enterprises. They must be equipped with knowledge on how to handle disaster and injury risks, and they need to implement feasible disaster prevention and mitigation measures. General management for businesses must establish disaster risk identification systems, and incorporate disaster prevention and mitigation standards into operations.
The risk of a fire breaking out exists everywhere. The only difference is the degree of that risk and whether a space carries a high or low fire risk. The Taichung branch of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi set a precedent for shopping centers by establishing a “director of safety and security” position in 2018, yet a review of Thursday’s explosion showed that it was reminiscent of the 2019 Kyoto Animation studio arson attack.
The Taichung Fire Department’s fire prevention and evacuation guidelines recognize that even if a space passes safety inspections and has official approval, there is always a high likelihood that evacuation measures could fail.
For a long time, Taiwanese have seen public safety as black-and-white, with the mindset that if standards and situations conform to laws and regulations, a fire would not break out. They do not consider the greatest variable in those situations — the human element.
Furthermore, it is impossible to invest unlimited resources into prevention, damage mitigation equipment and practices, human resources and improvement plans. What we can and should do is fix our conceptions. The mindset that disasters cannot occur is unrealistic.
In the face of a disaster, everyone is on equal footing — anyone could get injured or lose their life. The heavy lifting needed for disaster prevention or mitigation for an entire space cannot be placed solely on the shoulders of a small number of disaster relief units, experts or academics dedicated to improving public safety and risk management. Instead, all of society should gain awareness, reflect and change by learning from previous disasters.
Ray Lee is a project researcher with the Taiwan chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
Translated by Tim Smith
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