Pictures of the fire that caught the plastic industry belonging to no one but our dear minister of tourism Fadi Abboud.
I wonder if the necessary precautions are being taken by the ministry of health to avoid any harm on the nearby residential areas and if the minister in question is going to justify the incident or not.
On the positive side, Fadi Abboud did leave the Miss Lebanon ceremony after hearing about the fire. [Link]
Thanks Cyril for the pics
Fires happen, is there any indication of owner negligence?
Fires happen but don’t spread that fast and destroy the whole factory unless the right precautions were not taken. No?
Najib, not necessarily – chemical fires can spread very quickly.
In all cases, at this point it is speculation.. please share with us any additional info about the fire so that the reader can have a better opinion.
Joe,
I’ve talked to a friend of mine and he told me the most common reason for such fires is an electricity problem but the thing with plastic is that you need special extinguishers to keep the fire from spreading as water makes things worse and knowing that our civil defense units don’t have such equipment, the factory should have been better equipped for disaster moments like this one.
There are hundreds of plastic factories in Lebanon and this could have been the least worst protected for all I know and situated in an industrial area but imagine the damage you would have had if this were in a residential area.
For a fire to destroy the whole building and cause the damage that it has done, either the right precautions were not taken or it was a criminal act yet it pretty much looks like the first option here.
Oh and not surprisingly, Fadi Abboud did not apologize to the nearby residents or to what he did to the environment but apologized to his customers.
It’s still speculations about why and how the fire happened.
That being said, he should have apologized for any environmental effect and that factory shouldn’t be there in the first place: the area has been classified as industrial zone in the past but with today’s residential boom all around, it should be moved somewhere else.
TO Joe and Najib,
As much as i respect your opinion you can’t lay the blame on the factory owners for the location and the environmental impact when there has never been clear, concise and strict regulation regarding these issues.
The industrial sector in Lebanon has been neglected for years, and that neglect is affecting all of us, and our economy (tourism my foot).
Fadi Abboud, or anyone else for that matter, that runs a hazardous plant should and are in fact aware of the risks, but as far as i know and am told by people ‘in’ on the subject, there are no regulations that make them have to install their own fire suppression system and there are no environmental laws which require them to pay or do something to counter the toxic wastes and fumes these plants let out.
It’s the Same with the Frem family and the Sanita Plastic business, the factories are ill ventilated, workers unprotected from the fumes, and under insured and usually abandoned when they get sicknesses resulting from those toxic fumes (some work is being done toward fixing that i heard). There is no environmental awareness and I’m not talking about being green here, just survival.
Part of that blame falls on the government for not being responsible towards it’s labor force (and its citizens as a whole), but also, the big chunk lands on the lap of labor unions who are not doing the job they are supposed to do, and that is to insure (by pressuring the employers) that Union members are taken care of, paid correctly, insured correctly…but politics and sectarianism do take their toll and mess the whole notion of a union…
now, there is also a lot of responsibility to be laid on the foot of the past interior ministries (with focus on the plural of them all), in neglecting the civil defense, which, along with the emergency medical services should be the focal point in Lebanon, a country that is always on the brink of war (casualties) and a natural disaster of some kind (earthquakes, tsunamis or both).
Civil defense members are poorly trained and equipped, because of mis-allocation of public funds (our money)…
so Najib and Joe, if you want to blame someone for the environmental impact of that fire, blame the past interior ministers, the past governments and the entire rotten structure of this rabid country…
It is they (with all their past members)[current ones still standing my trial for the next 2 weeks but they are looking ripe to join them] should be lined up at a waterfront, made to apologize for everything, and then kicked in the rear overboard so they can swim all the way out of our territorial waters, maybe perhaps after 12 miles of swimming some of the shame might wash off of them, but I doubt any of them will make it….
Oh Yeah, and fires happen in any industry, it’s how you deal with it that makes the difference and i think this Abboud person did rather well, i heard him talk on TV the other day, and i liked how he thanked all the members of the Fire Brigade but thrashed their lack of training and criticized the whole structure…lets see if he ,now a minister, can do something to change that rotten structure.
Ron,
I haven’t blamed Abboud for the location of the factory, in fact I have acknowledged that the factory has been established in that area before residential buildings mushroomed.
What I am saying is that the industrial area should now move to a more remote location, Abboud will make more money by selling his land and relocating.
If you read my posts carefully you will see that I haven’t been overly critical of the minister.. Najib on the other hand was a bit overboard.
And one more thing: even if there is no legal obligation towards all the Safety, Health & Environment regulations, there is still a moral obligation towards SHE which all those industrialists should be aware of.