The National logo, global utilities Primary navigation main content James Calderwood, Foreign Correspondent On Monday, inspectors ordered the evacuation of a charity bazaar tent
at the Kuwait Society of Engineers due to several violations. Raed Nasser Qutena for The National KUWAIT CITY // Kuwait’s government has torn down around 100 Ramadan tents and closed others after they failed spot checks from fire officials in the wake of the recent wedding tent fire that killed 45 women and children. The checks on dangerous and illegal tents are being conducted by the fire department and the council of ministers’ Security Decision Follow-up Committee (SDFC), which has been in charge of removing thousands of structures built illegally on government land, known as encroachments, over the past three years. “I believe the main reason for what happened in Jahra was the feeling of the Kuwaiti people that it is OK to break the law. Whoever put up that tent was breaking the law,” the co-ordinator of the SDFC, Saud al Khatrash, said. The fire engulfed a wedding tent pitched in a residential area in Jahra on August 15 with lightning speed, leaving 38 charred bodies of women and children in a pile near the tent’s only exit. Several more have since died from their injuries. One unnamed person, who the local press say is the groom’s first wife, has been arrested in connection with the blaze.
In the past, the removal teams gave offenders time to remove the structures themselves. “Now we just go and tear them down. They all know they’re doing something wrong,” he said. The fire department’s campaign focuses on enforcing fire regulations in tents that have permits. Brig Gen Jassem al Mansouri, the fire department chief, said the rules have been in place since 1982, but they were not implemented well and as a result “some tents are out of control”.