Dubai: In the late hours of a weekend night and under cover of darkness, Dubai did a clean, swift, and successful operation in a record time that very few of us noticed. Efforts were led and followed personally by Shaikh Mansour Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The world should learn from Dubai once again.
At approximately 1am on Friday morning, a massive fire broke out in the 87-storey Torch Tower, one of the tallest residential buildings in the world located in Dubai Marina area. Within moments, first responders from Dubai Civil Defence and emergency services were at the scene. Among the first responders were two of Dubai’s top officials, Major General Abdullah Al Merri, Commander-in-Chief of Dubai Police, wearing a kandoura and a red baseball cap; and Major General Rashid Al Matroushi, Director General of Dubai Civil Defence, also in a kandoura. This clearly shows they were off duty then. Their priority nevertheless was to evacuate the tower’s occupants, safety of residences, and containment of the fire.
The UAE, and Dubai in particular, has a very transparent and accurate public communication strategy. Dubai Media Office, the official media arm of the Government of Dubai, and Dubai Civil Defence are very quick on Twitter and Instagram announcing what’s going on, and how the situation is being dealt with by the emergency services.
Minute-by-minute updates were out on their channels to keep public and media informed.
Torch Tower is in the middle of Dubai Marina, a busy tourist and leisure destination, and it is located very close to other high-rise towers which are mostly residential or hotels buildings. The tower is occupied by a big number of people; hence evacuation would not have been an easy task, especially when it comes to a night time evacuation when most of the residents are asleep. But surprisingly by 2 am, Dubai Civil Defence confirmed the completion of full evacuation of Torch Tower, and reported zero missing, casualties or injuries.
As efforts to put out the fire were under way, pictures and videos of the blaze were viral on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat Map, and other social media channels. Among the videos and pictures was seen a gentleman in black baseball cap and casual shorts who appears to be getting out of his car, meeting officials on site, and instructing firefighters on tactics and strategies. He was none other than Shaikh Mansour, the son of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. It is 3 am of a summer night, he is supposed to be either vacationing somewhere on an exotic island or at least sleeping at his home. But this is UAE, a strong independent country when it comes to security, emergency support, or protection. Without exaggeration, just a few days ago Shaikh Mansour was also seen speaking to a site in-charge of Dubai Civil Defence after a minor fire incident at a textile storage warehouse in Al Qouz, Dubai.
By 3:30 am, miraculously, men of Dubai Civil Defence had cleanly extinguished the fire, and Dubai Media Office tweeted a fresh picture of the building, with those huge flames all gone. Several twitter users also posted pictures and confirmed that the fire was extinguished.
Civil fires are very common in countries where temperature hit above average of 45 degrees Celsius in day time and occasionally cross 40 degrees in early evenings. Although the exact cause of the Torch Tower fire on Friday remains to be fully investigated, but controlling large fires on massive and fully occupied infrastructures with zero casualties in record times is now a specialty of the UAE.
Success in such situations is not only measured by just the rescue missions. All the occupants and residents of Torch Tower were immediately placed in nearby top-class hotels and other furnished apartments.
Let alone humans, Dubai emergency services do not leave behind even animals in such situations. A firefighter was also seen carrying a surviving cat as he walked towards an emergency vehicle. The pet was later safely handed over by Dubai Police Commander-in-chief Maj. Gen. Abdullah Al Merri to its owner.
My heart goes out when I recall the mayhem in 2012 at Doha’s Villaggio Mall fire, where a daytime blaze unfortunately claimed the lives of 13 children and 6 adults. Investigations later revealed that the primary cause of casualties was due to lack of “necessary safety conditions” at a day care centre in the mall. A Qatari court later also found five people guilty of causing death by negligence, including the then Qatari ambassador to Belgium and his wife who owned the day care centre at the mall. Unfortunately, the diplomat was later acquitted.
Not long ago was the devastating fire at a 24-storey residential tower in the middle of London, the Grenfell Tower. The fire engulfed large sections of the building and at least 80 of its residents are today presumed dead. Firefighters at the Grenfell Tower were severely hampered by equipment faults and pushbacks, leading to delays in extinguishing the inferno. The fire at the building was finally extinguished after more than 24 hours of the first incident report. The blaze also left hundreds of residents homeless.
My comparisons of these incidents may not fully fit in with the Torch Tower fire, but at least the examples of these unfortunate incidents give a sense of how well Dubai’s emergency services are prepared and how efficiently and swiftly they perform their duties in such chaotic situations.
If it was only about money or availability of resources, then the richest country per capita, Qatar, would have not failed in at least ensuring justice to the victims, let alone saving the people. But here again we talk about long-term strategy, excellent planning, swift execution, justice, crisis management, and most of all, the vision of President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the Leaders of this country.
— Hassan Sajwani is an Emirati writer on current affairs, politics, tech, and finance; you may follow him on twitter @HSajwanization
