The curious bystanders there do not volunteer any help but take up key space by just looking at the scene or taking photos. In fact such people pose a serious obstacle to the Civil Defense in their efforts to launch swift rescue operations.
A major problem Civil Defense had to face in the Saturday’s school fire in Jeddah was the callous behavior of curious onlookers. They had chaotically parked their vehicles on the roads leading up to the school and delayed the Civil Defense trucks from reaching the school building.
Although the rescuers arrived at the vicinity of the school within five minutes of the fire starting, they could not bring their heavy equipment and trucks near the building on fire for a long time because the cars parked on the approach road had to be moved away.
The gawking crowd also made it next to impossible for parents and relatives to find their children who were in the school at the time of the fire.
Stressing the significance of swiftness in starting rescue operations, Director of Jeddah Civil Defense Brig. Abdullah Jeddawi, said: “We had to waste precious time to clear the roads of the vehicles that blocked the passage. The obstructing vehicles belonged mostly to onlookers and relatives.”
Once the rescue teams managed to reach the location they started their operations instantly, he added.
When asked about girls jumping out from upper floors, Jeddawi said it was a natural reaction of panicked people who could not control their actions when encountered with a dangerous situation.
“If they had waited for a little while, the rescuers would have reached them and safely brought them to the ground,” the official said, adding that there were people who jumped from the top of the 50th floor of a building believing that the act would save them.
The crowd did not pose a serious threat to the activities of the Health Department, as they did to the Red Crescent, police and Civil Defense, according to Public Relations Director of the Health Department in Jeddah Abdul Rahman Al-Sahfi.
“The role of Health Department is to offer support to the Red Crescent in first aid services,” he said.
He added that onlookers or media people did not crowd at hospitals.
“Hospitals do not permit interviews or photographing of patients,” he said. No photographer is permitted inside a hospital without the permission of authorities.
“News about the school fire was a double shock to me because my wife worked there while my daughter was in the kindergarten in the same school,” Mastur Saeed, whose dear ones were not injured in the fire, told Arab News.
In his state of deep anxiety, he was upset by the crowd that blocked his road to the school. “In my state of trepidation, I figured that the crowd and parked cars would delay the rescuers to reach the accident site,” he said.
Though inordinately delayed by the hustle and bustle, he found that his wife and child were safe.
Ali Al-Darin, whose daughter was in the kindergarten, also told a similar story.
On learning about the dreadful event, he drove with maddening speed to the school.
But as he reached closer to the school, the roads were clogged with vehicles and people. He had to get down and rush to the school on foot to find out what happened to his daughter.
However, he found his daughter safe to his great relief, he said.
