Beach resorts shut after pool deaths

The Civil Defense in Jeddah shut down more than 50 beach resorts in the past two weeks for violating safety regulations, causing an increase in the percentage of pool drowning accidents.
Abbdullah Al-Jeddawi, director of Civil Defense in Jeddah, said the percentage of children drowning in pools during holiday seasons jumps 200 percent compared to the rest of the year.
“The incidents of drowning in beach resorts may not exceed twice a month during non-holidays. However, drowning accidents during holidays reach up to 2-3 cases a day.” said Al-Jeddawi, describing children as the “holiday victims” of the season.
Al-Jeddawi said a system is being implemented in resorts under which a committee with the involvement of supervising and security teams not only handles drowning cases but also oversees other events. Major concerns are taken into account during holidays, which focus on adventure and theme parks to avoid accidents, as well as the random use of fireworks in Corniche and other places.
Security authorities started supervising around 25 locations. It will supervise various events during the upcoming Eid holiday, including 10 locations owned by Jeddah Municipality.
Al-Jeddawi said: “Jeddah Municipality’s locations are represented inside residential neighborhoods where tents are put up for the duration of Eid celebrations, as well as fixed locations under surveillance before and after the celebrations including malls, shopping centers and adventure theme parks.”
He said adventure parks had the most irregularities as they did not have safety tools available, adding that these locations are under inspection during most of Ramadan to uncover and solve problems.
“There are people who carelessly continue using machines in parks without checking seat belts and safety tools among other things, but we will not allow that. We demand full reports from the owners regarding maintenance,” added Al-Jeddawi.
Apart from supervising fixed Civil Defense locations, 16 fire and rescue teams, as well as 40 safety patrols will supervise locations during all days of Eid Al-Fitr celebrations.
“We might face challenges caused by traffic jams, but it will not affect our work,” Al-Jeddawi assured.