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A Few Good Points About Rana Plaza Incident

byAshique Hasan

1. The building collapsed at Savar which is broadly covered by national and international

media exposed some extraordinary examples of spontaneous volunteerism which I'd like todescribe here:

a. After the incident there were more than a thousand spontaneous volunteers who

came and participated in a rescue operation risking their own lives. The majority of these

spontaneous volunteers were untrained and unaffiliated.http://www.newagebd.com/detail.php?date=2013-04-28&nid=47523#.UaTe_G1Mb1U

b. This incident presented a different picture to the nation. On the one side, therewas a lack of coordination among the government organizations, and a lack of

appropriate equipment and resources for carrying out the rescue operation. But on the

other side, there were huge numbers of spontaneous volunteers who gathered at theincident place. These volunteers were able to rescue and evacuate a good number of

victims to nearby hospitals and clinics without any supervision and coordination effort.

c. The nearby private hospital Enam Medical College Hospital did a magnificent

job. They treated a good number of injured victims beyond their resources and capability,

which was owed to the dedication of the doctors, nurses and students who work there.Interestingly, they were not trained to treat mass casualties. But they did it successfully.

d. The students played an inconceivable role by taking on internet-related tasks aswell as playing an active part in the rescue operation. Some of them went to hospitals and

collected and disseminated information of the victims on Facebook, on pin boards in thehospitals, the incident area or the morgue.

e. Some of them gave blood for the victims and distributed information about much

needed blood groups and locations of blood donation centers. Volunteer doctors andmedical students from various hospitals and the medical college came forward to collect

those blood donations at their nearby location.

f. Facebook played a notable part in collecting money for the treatment and

rehabilitation of the survivors from home and abroad. Facebook helped the students or

volunteers to get the appropriate equipment for the rescue mission. It was very interesting

to learn that before broadcasting in national media the spontaneous volunteers couldsuccessfully spread the information for asking equipment through various websites and

Facebook to some renowned companies in Bangladesh. Later on a good number of

private companies came forward and extended their hand for helping the rescue missionproviding necessary equipment like drill cutters, concrete cutter hammer jacks, cranes

etc. This was only made possible by the spontaneous volunteers and their efforts online.

https://www.facebook.com/ashique.hasanhttps://www.facebook.com/ashique.hasanhttps://www.facebook.com/ashique.hasanhttp://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newagebd.com%2Fdetail.php%3Fdate%3D2013-04-28%26nid%3D47523%23.UaTe_G1Mb1U&h=DAQELnBPWhttp://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newagebd.com%2Fdetail.php%3Fdate%3D2013-04-28%26nid%3D47523%23.UaTe_G1Mb1U&h=DAQELnBPWhttp://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newagebd.com%2Fdetail.php%3Fdate%3D2013-04-28%26nid%3D47523%23.UaTe_G1Mb1U&h=DAQELnBPWhttps://www.facebook.com/ashique.hasan

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g. I remember a poor fellow who didn't have the physical endurance to play an

active part in the rescue mission. What did he do? He was standing near the site with his

cheap cell phone and allowed the relatives of the victims to make calls from his cellphone, for free. This was a really touching story. People simply wanted to help the

victims and they used the resources available to them, be it their physical strength, their

courage, their humanity or their love for others.

h. Last but not the least I will conclude here with another story, a civil engineer

named Ezaz. He went to Rana Plaza after the building collapsed as a spontaneousvolunteer and he got down a narrow hole for rescuing a garments worker named Shaina

but unfortunately while rescuing her both of them were burnt due to accidental fire. The

garment worker died on the spot and later on the volunteer Ezaz died at hospital. You can

read about the incident here.(http://www.newagebd.com/detail.php?date=2013-05-07&nid=48303#.UaTt4G1Mb1U)

2. The collapse of "Rana Plaza" was an incident which helped us to realize where we stand

and what people can do spontaneously without any training and guidelines. And if we candevelop an effective volunteer management system to timely channel the spontaneous efforts of

local people into the right place it will definitely prove to be more effective. There is also a needto train more people in the community. Overall we need to campaign for more awareness

amongst the general public and stop the government allowing the construction of buildings

without adhering to strict building regulations.

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