NCRI – Regarding the Plasco Building collapse in Tehran on January 19, the state-run ILNA news agency has quoted a lawyer named ‘Kambiz Norouzi’ as saying that “following the Plasco disaster, Tehran Municipal officials as well as the chairman of City Council of Tehran are continuously attempting to absolve Mayor of Tehran of any fault or responsibility, claiming that, for instance, the municipality has issued safety warnings for the Building 14 times in the past few years.”
“A warning that doesn’t lead to an action is of no use and can’t relieve the municipality of its responsibilities”, added Norouzi.
“Firstly, these warnings prove that Tehran’s municipality has been fully aware of the fatal risks of the building’s non-compliance with safety regulations”, says Norouzi, “Secondly, they have also been aware of the fact that the dimensions of the Plasco Building were so huge that any incident there could turn into a city-wide disaster, which it did. Thirdly, the municipality didn’t go any further than to give mere warnings, thus failing to take any effective measures to use its authorities (like, for instance, the one mentioned in paragraph 14, article 55 of the municipal law) so as to enforce safety regulations and eliminate the risks associated with the Plasco Building, whereas if they did, such a disaster wouldn’t have happened. Fourthly, the least the municipality could have done with regard to Plasco Building’s non-compliance with safety measures, was to shut down the building and prevent any activity from taking place, which they didn’t, either.”
Kambiz Norouzi concludes his remarks by saying “briefly, when they say they had warned about the Plasco Building’s non-compliance with safety regulations, it means that they’ve been fully aware of that. And when they were aware of that, they should have taken some preventive measures about it. And Since they’ve failed to do that, it means that they’ve failed to fulfill their obligations .This means being responsible in the disaster, regarded as a ‘fault’ according to legal terms.”
