Lack of safety measures take five lives at Kohinoor TV station

Questions have been arisen about the emergency safety measures at media centers after five people lost their lives when a studio of Kohinoor TV channel caught fire during the transmission of live sehri show.

According to the media reports, three guests and two other employees of the channel died of fatal burns and suffocation while another nine, including the programme host, were also among the injured.

Initial inquiry revealed that sparks erupted in the lighting system and fell on insulations and wooden sets, hence, the poorly-installed electricity wiring caught fire that engulfed the whole studio and the people within no time.

Pakistan Federal Union of Journalist (PFUJ) Pervez Shaukat while speaking to the media demanded judicial investigation of the incident. He urged the authorities concerned to take strict action against the people found guilty of the negligence.

He observed, “Regrettably the owners of the channels who spend billions of rupees to start television stations do not take safety measures for protection of their employees”.

In his view, the clause of emergency safety measures should be included in the license for the TV stations. The institutions are responsible for providing safety measures to their employees in case of emergency, he added.

It is vital to mention here that numerous offices of the TV channels have no safety measures to meet any emergency incident.

Analyst Hasan Askari was of the opinion that protection of employees was not in the priority list of owners of the TV channels. He said strict action should be taken against such institutions which have not installed basic safety measures.

Whatever has been happened cannot come back, but the media institutions should start soul searching in order to avoid such incidents in future.

The mainstream electronic media didn’t give proper coverage to the incident as a media institution was involved. These TV channels might have live coverage and follow up programs in case the incident was occurred in any other private building.

It is best time for the media organizations to introduce basic safety measures in their offices and train their employees about how to act in such untoward moments.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=30003

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Jul 31 2012. Filed under Opinion, Pakistan, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.