THE Malaysian social media sphere saw an outpouring of grief this morning after a fire at a religious school in Kuala Lumpur claimed the lives of 21 pupils and two wardens.

Many, however, also hit out at the authorities and their perceived negligence and lack of enforcement of fire safety rules, calling for responsible parties to be held accountable.

On Twitter, Yu Ren Chung (@renchung) said: “This was preventable. Negligent authorities must be held accountable. Tragic. Rest in peace.”

Another user arifsetia (@arifsetia20132d) suggested that the party responsible be punished. “Whoever caused this tragedy to happened should be jailed! There’s should be no forgiven or excuses to let them free!”

For Pencetus Umph Ahh (@soulzoul) and faizbakar (@sliceoffaiz), the incident should be a wake-up call for the authorities to be more vigilant.

“Condolences to family members of the tahfiz fire victims. Now the authority shld pay more attention to the safety aspect of tahfiz premises,” @soulzoul said.

“Another tragic event. Another wake up call for the authorities regarding about building safety,” said @sliceoffaiz.

Noting a trend in tragic incidents involving tahfiz schools, Nigel Kayans‏ (@fathi_yakan) tweeted: “Hire convicted felon as warden, hire driver van w/o lesen, fire protection system takde. Tahfiz memang dapat exception from authorities ke?” (Do tahfiz schools get exemptions from the authorities?)

It was reported that the school, Pusat Tahfiz Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah, has been operating since November 2012 but only submitted its safety plans recently. The school has not been assessed by the Fire Department yet.

Other users also picked up on prevalence of tragedies involving tahfiz schools but Kam Shan Shao (@shaokamshan) is not confident that anyone will be held responsible. Instead, parties involved will play the blame game.

“It’s so sad to read of such tragedies. But, it the same old story. It’s always the same. So, here we go again. It’s ‘finger pointing’ time.”

Samuel John (@twt_stupid) wonders how the tragedy could have been avoided: “Is this a common problem? If yes, what to be done to prevent recurrence? If no, where enforcements went wrong?”

According to Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Noh Omar, 30 of the 1,785 building fires this year involved tahfiz, pondok schools, and madrasah, with losses totalling RM1.4 million.

On Facebook, Roslan Abdullah urged the government to reassess the country’s religious schools instead of focusing on big projects.

“Kerajaan umno perlu menyiasat seluruh sekolah2 agama seluaruh negara beri peruntukan secukupnya untuk membaiki bangunan supaya perkara ini tidak berulang lagi…jgn asik nak buat projet2 besar sahaja..bangsa dan Agama sendiri diketepikan.”

(The government needs to investigate all religious schools in the country, give them enough budget to repair the buildings so that incidents like this won’t happen again. Don’t always undertake big projects. Their own people and religion are cast aside.)

The fire at Pusat Tahfiz Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah was believed to have started out at one of the bedrooms at the top floor of the three-storey school.

Fire and rescue officials who arrived at the scene at 5.52am described the fire as “raging”. Officials managed to control the fire within 25 minutes.

Health authorities said it will take days before the victims are positively identified as most were burnt badly. – September 14, 2017.