Still too many unsafe high-rises

The fire on Tuesday that gutted a 15-storey Bangkok apartment building and left three tenants dead should serve as a wakeup call for all city-dwellers, owners and managers of high-rises, and the municipal authorities involved in safety, zoning and policing.
The blaze in Ratchathewi district in the early hours of Tuesday also left more than 30 people injured. This was one of countless multiple-storey structures erected before the revised Building Control Act came into effect in 1992 with tougher requirements for safety measures in tall edifices, including fire prevention and fire-fighting features.
Until then, multi-storey buildings needed only fire exits, and, to save on costs, these exits were typically equipped with ladders rather than stairways. They rarely featured fireproof and smoke-proof materials, so they often failed to provide sufficient safety when fires broke out.
The 1992 law still in effect requires all tall buildings to have fire alarms and sprinkler systems that kick in automatically, but it’s a simple matter to find high-rises without these safeguards anywhere in the country. Owners of high-rises constructed prior to 1992 might believe they have a valid rationale for ignoring the safety regulations. They may never have felt compelled to upgrade or improve their outdated fire-protection features. If so, they are wrong.
The authorities in charge need to get tougher with property owners and managers who neglect public safety for whatever reason, whether out of greed and a lust for larger profits or through sheer heedlessness for the wellbeing of others. Perhaps they don’t know about the regulations. Perhaps they’re too lazy to be bothered making changes. Regardless, the onus is on the responsible authorities to educate them, prod them, threaten them with hefty fines and jail them if necessary should they still refuse to comply.
In fact, a 1997 Interior Ministry regulation requires all buildings of four or more storeys to have fire exits with stairs, not ladders. The walls and doors of the exits must be properly fireproofed. The doors must have a mechanism that prevents flames and smoke from entering the stairwell. The ministerial regulation requires an automatic fire-alarm system that’s loud enough to be audible throughout the building.
There are more than 2,800  high-rise buildings (23 metres and above) in Bangkok and hundreds more in the country’s other large cities. We can only trust that new buildings are going up in complete accord with the tougher safety requirements, and instead direct our concern to the older buildings with inadequate fire protection.
The Bangkok apartment building that caught fire on Tuesday, apparently because of a wiring short circuit, had fire-escape ladders, but not stairs. Tenants told reporters they heard no alarm, but rather survived thanks only to alerts from neighbours.
Three people died in that fire.
So let’s make sure the older buildings are upgraded with measures that ensure the safety and peace of mind of all building occupants. A proper, functioning fire safety system must be in place, along with any fire-fighting equipment deemed necessary for an emergency. Fire exits should at least be improved so that flames or smoke cannot injure people who are fleeing the building. Automatic fire alarms and sprinklers must be installed to help reduce risk. Time is of the essence.