THE recriminations have begun. The outrage, too. And calls for action. It would take just hours for all this to happen after a major tragedy like today’s pre-dawn fire at a religious school in the Klang Valley.

Time passes. Another fire. Some disaster. Perhaps, another assault case. The cycle restarts. Malaysia goes through this every time lives are needlessly extinguished.

Twenty-one pupils and two wardens died today at the Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah Tahfiz Centre in Datuk Keramat in the Klang Valley from a pre-dawn fire. In March, Mohamad Thaqif Amin Mohd Ghaddaf died days after being assaulted. But the authorities say his death is from leptospirosis (infection by rat urine).

The thing is, people are dead. Fire and disease. All of which are preventable if precautions are taken.

But in the rush to build, provide and, perhaps, make money, people lose sight of what is most precious – life. That health and safety is of utmost importance.

No one sends their children to school only to receive a body wrapped in a shroud.

When that happens, it means the authorities were ignorant or closed an eye, the ones running the schools or buildings skipped the important steps to ensure that the students, wardens, teachers and families are safe and sound.

After all, Malaysia has building safety and fire codes. No one should take a house and turn it into a school just like that. There are by-laws to ensure density and use of buildings are regulated.

So, how did a school get to operate with security grilles and just one door as an exit and entrance? Did no one care? The authorities said the school’s building plans had yet to be approved and the structures there were different from the submitted plans.

Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Noh Omar said the plans submitted by the school’s operators were for an “open area concept”, with two emergency staircases and no walls at the top floor.

But what he saw at the site of the school was different from the plans submitted.

“They have yet to get approval from the Fire Department before operating. They should have inspected the school before issuing a certificate of completion and compliance.”

The question, as was in Thaqif’s tragic death, is simple. Who regulates these schools? Can anyone just set up a religious school without approval for syllabus, teaching staff, and school building and dormitories?

Or, do we leave it to fate?

If that is the case, Malaysians might as well just study along highways and take advantage of the breeze and street lamps, and pray no vehicles will veer and crash into them.

The government of the day has the duty to ensure that all laws are followed to the letter. If it can police the internet and go against dissenters who post their thoughts, it can also police the numerous schools to ensure basic safety is adhered to.

We can lament what has happened, but we cannot keep on lamenting. The wake-up calls from the number of deaths from fires and other incidents tell us that nothing has been done to prevent further cases.

No modern country should have such a high number of casualties from fires. Not Britain, with the Grenfell Tower fire that killed 80 last June, and definitely not Malaysia, with the 23 killed today.

There is simply no excuse for the deaths. – September 14, 2017.