Authorities are generally the first to be blamed whenever tragedy strikes. They are accused of not having put a particular policy in place, being lax about safety standards, failing to back laws with enforcement and on and on the angry finger-pointing goes. The Cornwall Court blaze in Mong Kok last Sunday has so far followed the pattern to the hilt; a lack of a sprinkler system, removed smoke doors and blocked fire exits have been highlighted by lay experts as allegedly contributing to the worst conflagration Hong Kong has experienced since the Garley Commercial Building fire in 1996.
An inquiry into the No 5 alarm fire that killed four people will shed an official light on what happened. As with the Garley blaze, it will most likely find fault with fire safety enforcement. One way or the other, authorities will have to carry the can.
Safety equipment, regulations, spot-checks of premises and the manpower to make them happen are important in preventing fires. But these are of little worth if the people caught up in disasters do not respond intelligently. If smoke wafts across their ceiling and they ignore it until it is too late, officials can hardly be blamed for their becoming a grim statistic.
Let's be fair about this. If there is a fire in the building in which your office is located, what are you going to do? Quickly head for the fire exit is the standard response, but Time magazine senior writer Amanda Ripley has found that this is the case only some of the time. From research prompted by her reporting on the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the affects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans in 2005, she has found that unless you are properly trained and primed to react to a crisis, you are as likely to dash for the exits as do nothing.
Ripley's recently-published book, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - And Why, is an intriguing insight into how we can individually best prepare for a tragedy. The journalist has spoken to hundreds of people who have, from fires to floods, the Indian Ocean tsunami and ship and plane accidents. She told me yesterday that there appeared to be three phases most people go through in such situations: Denial, deliberation and then the decisive moment when they finally take action. The major distinction was how much time they had to go through the phases. Response to a storm was slower than to a fire, for example. Most people she spoke to had a story about a person involved in a crisis being immobilised rather than fleeing for safety.
Ripley's most surprising finding was widespread panic was rare in disasters. Most people became passive, obedient and kind to strangers. Some experts refer to the behaviour as negative panic; it is characterised by people moving slowly or shutting down.