Ten fire tenders, imported snorkel ready to cope with emergencies

Author: Aslam Shah

KARACHI: Ten fire tenders having imported machinery and a 104-meter-tall snorkel imported from Finland have been stationed at a private site in Korangi.

The import cost of snorkel stood at Rs 500 million while a sum of Rs 200 million was spent on ten fire tenders.

The Local Government Department (LGD) will hand over the machines to the incoming Sindh government. Two fire tenders out of seven will be sent to Hyderabad District Headquarter, one each to Latifabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Mirpur Khas and Nawabshah.

LGD Project Director Niaz Soomro Niaz told Daily Times that snorkel and three fire tenders would be handed over to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation.

For the purpose, KMC Chief Fire Officer Tehseen Ahmad has been imparted training from Finland. A two-member expert training team of Finland has also arrived in Karachi for providing technical know-how to 19 officials of KMC and five contractors for a period of two years.

Contractors would be trained for maintaining workability of snorkel, besides undertaking mechanical repairs in case of any disability in the machine, he said.

Snorkel will probably be kept either at Khaliq Dina Hall or Nehr-e-Khayyam Clifton after final approval by Mayor Waseem Akhtar, the chief fire officer said.

Karachi is still in need of four more snorkels to deal with rescue operations during emergencies because of a number of high rise buildings in the city.

High rise buildings in metropolis have no rescue facilities and KMC has only three snorkels with heights ranging from 55 meters to 60 meters. “These machines are in dire need of repair,” Tehseen added.

According to international standards, a snorkel is required per a million people in a city. With a population of 21.2 million, Karachi should have at least 20 functional snorkels.

Kazim, a retired officer of Karachi Fire Department, was of opinion that maneuverability of this size of machine is unsuitable for most of existing Karachi road network. “The imported snorkel will not be able to serve different areas of city because of narrow lanes, roads, underpasses and flyovers.”

He said that there was a dire need to import around five another medium-size snorkels ranging 55 meter to 60 meters height in order to tackle emergencies in congested parts of city.

Iftikhar Hussain Qureshi, managing director of the contract company, said that due process was followed during the import of the machinery.

Published in Daily Times, August 6^th 2018.