Acute lack of fire engines in east

BIRATNAGAR, Dec 27: Fire outbreaks in eastern Nepal have remained significantly damaging due to the absence of enough fire engines. Such outbreaks occur almost daily in the Morang-Sunsari Industrial Corridor. But relying on the fire engines belonging to the municipality has hardly helped in reducing fire-related losses. [break]



According to the Eastern Regional Police Office, Biratnagar, nearly Rs 150 million worth of property has already been lost to fires since November 16 in the region.



Since then, fire engines belonging to Biratnagar Sub-Metropolitan City controlled 12 fires. Of the seven municipal fire engines, only three are operational.



“Even the three are hardly managing to function,” said Kul Prasad Ojha of the fire engine section.



The section´s officer Tara Niraula said there aren´t adequate number of fire engines. “Outbreaks happen on a daily basis. But we have few engines, and they are too old,” he added.



In the past, the fire engines in Biratnagar used to cover areas ranging from Jhapa to Siraha. But two engines gifted by Britain and Russia and two others donated by Japan are not functional these days.



“Repairing the engines is expensive. That´s why they haven´t been repaired,” said Gopal Prasad Regmi, the chief executive of the Sub-Metropolis. “If we had the money to repair the fire engines, we would have been in a position to buy new ones instead,” he said.



Of the three engines in operation, two built by India´s Tata group, also need repair.



Regmi said that repairing the old engines does not make sense, as their spare parts are not available these days. He added that foreign donors will be asked for aid to purchase new fire engines.



The Ministry of Local Development has already been approached for more fire engines.

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