One of my Facebook friends Christie from Ireland who was following the events of Savar tragedy reminded me of our great artist S M Sultan from Narail. Sultan loved to portray the characters of his paintings as very robust Bengalis, not the lean and thin, ill-fed or ill-nourished that we are accustomed to see around us. Once I happened to ask the great artist during one of his occasional visits to Chittagong University why are his Bengali characters always so robust, well-built, and full of muscle and energy? His candid answer was that is how we are supposed to be. We have a history of braving so many odds, both natural and manmade and we have always been victorious. I was impressed by the artist’s explanation. How could one not agree with what the great artist said? Christie was in Bangladesh, working for an NGO and travelled in remote villages and lived in rural Bangladesh with families. She was in Narail and got to visit the small museum that S M Sultan built and got to see some of his paintings. She was full of admiration of his motif and style. She saw our hardworking poor, their struggle for maintaining their family and the bondage of their kinship relationship and how the ordinary people come over to help their neighbours in their hours of need, something that has become alien to Western culture and society. Christie has gone back with the promise that she would return someday. The Savar tragedy virtually brought her back to Bangladesh as she kept sending mails on hourly basis trying to keep herself updated with the rescue developments and monitoring the international media for all the updates. When the manual rescue mission was over and heavy equipment was brought in she felt sad as hopes of rescuing anyone alive faded. She told how amazed and overwhelmed she was seeing all those concerted efforts by the common people, by the different agencies of the government, including the firefighters, the armed forces, the police and other law enforcing agencies, the boy scouts, the para-medics and the students. She said no wonder Sultan portrayed the people of this country so robust and so full of energy and life. I told Christie, yes these were our bravehearts, who refused to be defeated for hundreds of years.

When the Twin Tower collapsed on September 11, 2001 the world witnessed the devastating catastrophe of the century. The world also witnessed the common people running away from the site of the incident, which is usual leaving the incident to be dealt with by the professionals. The same type of behaviour was also witnessed during the recent Boston bombing. However in Bangladesh, when similar incidents happen the scenario is quite the contrary and the ordinary people rush to the spot of occurrence sometimes immediately, knowing very well that our professional preparedness is not comparable to that of the West and also the risk involved in jumping into the eye of the storm.

When on April 24 the ill-fated Savar incident took place around 9am it was a Hartal day of the 18-party alliance and the everyday business in Savar was a bit sluggish. However, when the Rana Plaza collapsed suddenly the sluggish Savar jumped into life and before the official rescue operations could commence the common people got into action. Within minutes all TV channels informed the nation of the tragic incident and what might be the ultimate consequence, considering the number of the garment workers inside the five garment factories located inside the building. On hartal days travelling on motorised vehicles can be life threatening as these days’ hartals mean petrol bombs and handmade explosive devices that can kill or maim the ordinary people either inside vehicles or on the streets. So there was no way anyone could reach Savar from the adjoining areas or from Dhaka. However, those in and around Savar Bazaar rushed to the spot and immediately started their rescue mission. The firefighters arrived little while later to be followed by the armed forces. The electronic media reached there in about an hour to telecast live the rescue operation and the people of the country as well as those viewing around the world were amazed to see how the rescue operation quickly went into action through the combined efforts of all concerned, though most of whom risked their live had neither any previous experience of such a catastrophe or minimum training to handle such a situation.

The local Enam Medical College and Hospital and other clinics pressed into service all its ambulances and emergency services and opened its doors for all those who were injured. It mobilised all of its resources, including doctors, the interns, the students and the supporting staff. In a situation like this a precious commodity is blood. Soon blood donation centres sprang up across the city, including a large one at the Gonojagoron Moncho, a movement that has unfortunately been dubbed as an assembly of atheists by the opposition alliance and some fundamentalist political parties. It was not before the lapse of seven hours that the 18-party opposition alliance was kind enough to withdraw their hartal and allow relief and rescue operations to be mobilised from the city. Soon the Enam Medical College and Hospital and other clinics were overwhelmed by the hundreds of injured workers being rushed from the Rana Plaza. Everyone was running against time. Saving even one life also mattered. People from all walks of life lent their helping hand in collecting water, saline, dry food, medicine, air fresheners, oxygen cylinders and other necessary equipment. Everybody was on war footing, but this was a war of different kind, a war to save as many lives as possible. Using some basic equipment and human judgment and ad-hoc technology and processes the manual rescue operation continued for more than one hundred hours before the heavy equipment were called in. Dozens of rescue workers fell sick due to the stench and lack of oxygen, but did not give up. The GOC of the 9th Division, the State Minister for the Local Government and Rural Development camped on site and monitored the operation round the clock. It was a remarkable job. The government may have been temporarily paralysed by the situation initially but recomposed itself and got back into business.

An old man, with nothing much to offer came to the site with a packet of saline and some biscuit and water. A visitor to his sister’s house in the locality was one of the first to jump into the rescue operation but now he is fighting for his life as he himself was seriously injured while trying to save others’ lives. Eazuddin went down inside a seventy two feet hole to save the life of one Shahana but had to give up due to a sudden explosion and engulfing fire. He received second degree burn injury and the government has decided to shift him to Singapore on an air ambulance for improved treatment.

Sohel Rana, the owner of the Rana Plaza was on the run after the collapse of his building. The opposition was quick to jump to the conclusion that the government was assisting Rana to escape as he belonged to the ruling party. When he was arrested by the RAB intelligence near the Benapole border, the opposition now retracted their earlier statement saying that his arrest is an eyewash and even thought he is arrested he will not get the punishment due to him. The government had its failures too. Till now no government could put in place a proactive disaster management system to handle a situation like the one that happened in Savar. We always react to situations wasting valuable time and lives. Our Minister in charge of Disaster and Relief was nowhere to be seen. The ‘elite’ hospitals had failed to live upto the nation’s expectations. Health care is not always about making money. Savar type incident is not the first of its kind nor will it be the last. Many important lessons have to be learnt from this disaster.

The common folks, the fire fighters, the defence personnel, the law enforcing agencies, the para-medics, the doctors and other staff of the Enam Medical College and Hospital and other those of the other local clinics, the boy scouts, the volunteers, the media who gave us all the updates, they are our bravehearts whom the nation will be proud of for years to come. Though we lost at least 509 lives about 2500 were saved. Thanks to these bravehearts. A country which can create so many bravehearts spontaneously can never lose a battle. There are other battles waiting in the wings to be fought against the forces of darkness and evil. Now let us prepare ourselves to fight those battles and build up this nation as the martyrs of 1971 dreamt of. Salute to our bravehearts. Long live Bangladesh.

The writer is a former

Vice-chancellor of Chittagong

University.