The huge fire that broke out on the third day of the Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) in the pivotal coastal commercial area of the governorate of Marsa Matrouh indicates that time and again industrial safety measures are quite ‘marginal' to municipality officials. The area known as Souq Libya (Libya market), where goods are mainly brought across the Libyan-Egyptian borders and sold at cheap prices, comprises small clustered shops, some of which are roofed with tin sheets. The place as such embraces a huge amount of merchandise and cardboard boxes and is usually frequented in the high summer season by visitors. The fire that spread so quickly to the marketplace has reportedly destroyed more than 300 shops, with total losses initially estimated at LE30 million. Because the fire started before dawn, there were no casualties. However, residents of the area, together with civil firefighters, battled the fire for four hours. The harmed shop-owners have been promised indemnities since not all of the shops enjoy insurance coverage. But the point is that the random way in which the marketplace was built and the missing safety measures suggest a complete lack of planning and a deficiency of services. The lanes inside the market are so narrow that they restricted the entry of fire engines very, and small capacity vehicles belonging to the water board and the Matrouh sewerage company had to be resorted to. The inadequacy might be quite evident in remote governorates as Marsa Matrouh or even in the south, but the same haphazardness is found in many places in the capital. Shop owners in Souq Libya say they have urged governorate officials more than once to supply a permanent fire engine in the vicinity of the marketplace, but as usual their request went unheard. The problem with this country is that we usually weep over spilt milk and neglect the ways and means to plan things properly in the first place.
