Blazing lessons

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This was an accident waiting to happen. Still, there are several lessons to be learnt from the fire that engulfed the Shura Council building on Tuesday evening. There are far more important priorities than pointing accusing fingers at others and indulging in gruelling blame games. What is of critical significance is not why the fire erupted, rather it is the context in which such a disaster occurred and is likely to be repeated if it is not evaded once and for all.

Emerging from the debris, one clear message is that buildings of crucial and historical importance housing such vital documents could be lost in a split second because the necessary precautions were ignored. These are architectural treasures that witnessed the birth of our parliament and constitution.

This is an accident like any other, and yet like no other. A derailed train in Upper Egypt, a capsized ferry in the Red Sea carrying thousands of pilgrims on their way back from the Hejaz. These are symptomatic of an underlying problem at hand with a very clear solution in sight.

Do we need to move the capital? Cairo is bursting at the seams. The district surrounding the Qasr Al-Aini Street where the People's Assembly, syndicates, theatres, hospitals, faculties and several key ministries including the Ministry of the Interior are located, epitomises the traffic crisis of Egypt.

Nobody, no capital city, no metropolis is immune from disaster -- fire, flashfloods, earthquakes or terrorist attacks. However, we can minimise the brunt of such disasters by better planning and more caution. Fires can strike at any moment. However, we must be prepared for the worst.

That is the vital lesson that can be drawn from the fire when the smoke dies down. The nine hours that it took to partially put down the fire were especially revealing. Almost 18 hours after the fire first gutted the building, a few flames still flickered and the suffocating smoke filled the grey early morning skies. The hellish scene was a premonition, an ill omen.

The chaotic capital, its streets choked with vehicles, pedestrians and smog cannot cope with itself, let alone its fires and disastrous -- natural or man-made. More than anything else, the tragedy laid bare all the shortcomings of contemporary Cairene society.

A new Cairo might be one key to a problem-free capital. However, it is not the panacea to all our ills. What we need most is a proper and competent crisis management strategy to anticipate and abort similar nasty surprises that the future might hold.