I was watching this interesting documentary in Discovery Channel the other nite. It was "Disaster Detective". I guess the name says all about the show. Well, they were covering this particular incident in Korea in that show, the collapse of the Samppoong Department Store. Throughout the show, they highlighted series of events and also decisions made by morons that spelled the end of the Departmental Store. Numerous shortcuts that was taken during the construction of the building, (possibly to save money) had made the building a ticking time bomb. And the decision of the owner of the building to keep the building opened for business even after the building was declared not safe, sealed the doom for 500 + shoppers who were trapped and killed in the collapse. Oook, why am I talking about all this?

Watching that show made me to think, how safe are the buildings and malls in our country? How good are the safety equipments and evacuations process in all this mega malls? In our country, most of the time, issues and problems will only come out when there's a big loss of life in a particular incident. It's more like a knee jerk reaction. When an incident happens, the pointing finger first starts, followed by discovery of corruption and mistakes and finally the drastic and sometimes unreasonable and quick fix solutions are devised. It's as if to pacify the angry public.

Take the bus accident that killed 20 + people recently, that incident alone highlighted many loop holes and weaknesses in our transportation system. From unpaid summonses of busses, drives with lack of sleep and also the horrible conditions of some of the busses and not forgetting the failed penalty system for drivers.

Putting this into perspective, would we only know safety of the buildings in our country when one of it crumbles and sacrifices many innocent lives? I'm no expert in building safety and maintenance industry, but I'm sure there are routine safety checks on building structure, safety equipment and evacuation processes. My only hope is, people who are actually carrying out such tasks takes no shortcut. It's quite scary to think of the implication of such event. I know for a fact that a particular high rise building here trembles every time there's earthquake in the neighboring country, I'm not sure if that supposed to be normal. Every time that happens, the staffs are evacuated from the building and after that life is back to normal. I really hope adequate safety measures and maintenance are done in all our buildings.

I know we have morons in some important government offices, but my hope is, pls do not screw the general public by ur incompetence. I think the show have effected me quite deeply. I 'hope', something like the incident in Sampoong Departmental store will not happen here.