The two bomb attacks of August 25, at Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat and the collapse of a flyover under construction on Sunday night have exposed the terrible lack of equipment, material and personnel to handle a disaster situation in a public place. In all the three disasters, the major part of the rescue operations were done by people themselves.
These incidents prove that neither the corporate nor the government hospitals have the infrastructure to attend to several injured people immediately.
Lack of road sense
At the Punjagutta flyover, as the iron scaffolding collapsed, trapping two inmates of a car passing by. The automatic locking system was jammed and the doors could not open. Four employees of a nearby  petrol service station rushed to the car, broke open the windows and dragged out the trapped men.
Workers from an Irani restaurant came to the rescue of the affected by pleading with the passing motorists to take the injured to hospital. The ambulances arrived  after an hour, as they were caught in the traffic. As disaster management experts point out, there is no awareness among road users on the need to give way to ambulances.
The people had to struggle with their bare hands to move cement blocks and mangled iron to pull out the trapped people. Gas-cutters, jacks and such other equipment to cut through iron were not available.
Tardy communication
The large crowds of curious people too proved a hindrance in the rescue operations and the police did not have megaphones to order people to move away to facilitate the operations.
Army should train police
Organisations like the Army and the Railways that are better equipped to deal with such disasters, need to train police and a special corps, according to experts.
Authorities explain that the iron scaffolding to hold up the cement blocks at Punjaghutta had given way and a couple of cement blocks crashed. If only the blocks were strung together with high power steel cable, they would not have crashed. The running of the cable was postponed after the blocks were positioned, due to  rain and high volume of traffic on the road, which proved disastrous.
Importantly, the construction site was not cordoned off for traffic because it is one of the busiest areas of the city. Safety was given the go-by for some reason.
Why two died?
The police point out that two factors contributed to keeping the number of dead to two — one, as it was Sunday,  the road passing by the flyover was not clogged with rush hour traffic. Two, the scaffolding came down slowly, with a loud noise that warned people and gave them enough time to rush out of the way.