On May 14, 1988, a church bus in Kentucky caught fire after a collision killing 27 people and injuring 34 of 67 passengers. Called the Carrolton bus disaster, it is one of the most disastrous bus accidents in the history of the United States.
On March 18, 1995, the Ozone Disco in Manila, Philippines was also swallowed by fire, claiming the lives of at least 150 teenagers and leaving more than 100 badly injured. It was considered the deadliest fire that hit the city in more than half a century.
On November 28, 1942, tragedy struck when the Cocoanut Grove, a nightclub in Boston, Massachusetts, burned leaving 492 people dead and hundreds more severely injured. Although it's been more than 60 years after this tragic event, it still remains the deadliest nightclub fire in the history of America.
Although these disastrous fires happened in different places at different times, they share one thing in common --- authorities blamed emergency exits, or the lack thereof. Actually, all three of them had emergency exits as the government required. However, they all proved to be useless. Their faulty designs and absurd locations made it very difficult for the victims to use them or find them in the first place.
In most countries, an establishment is only given a permit to operate when it has proper special exits for emergencies such as fire. Using both the emergency exits and the regular exit allows faster evacuation. Besides the exits themselves, the establishment must also provide an alternate evacuation route in case the main exits are blocked.
If you're planning to open a business establishment, providing emergency exits is mandatory. There are several things that you have to bear in mind regarding these special exits. They must be strategically located and must be free from obstructions. Usually, the exit leads to a stairwell on the side of the building, a hallway or any other place that can allow easy evacuation. In the Ozone Disco tragedy, there were emergency exits but they led to nowhere. The exit was blocked by a new building, making it useless.
Ideally, the doors of the exit must open outward with a crash bar. Exit signs must also be ubiquitous in the area to let the people know exactly where to go in case of an emergency. In the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, there were numerous doors. In fact most of them could be used as emergency exits. However, they did not open outward. To open them as you go out, you would have to pull instead of push. The fire created a stampede. People were forcing themselves out by pushing other people against the door. This made them impossible to open. With the angry mob pushing you, how could you pull the door? The club also used revolving doors which proved to be useless as well. People were pushing both sides of the doors, making them stuck and unusable.
Knowing where the emergency exits are can draw the line between survival and death. This is why it is very important to post signs leading to the exit and label the exit properly. Many tragedies could have been prevented had people known where these exits were located and had these exits not been blocked. Some of the emergency exits in the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks were locked and inaccessible. The exits were also shut in the 2006 Moscow hospital fire. The exit doors of the Station Nightclub also swung inward killing several people.
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