Holi turns tragic

In my previous posts about Holi I already mentioned the dangers, particularly the safety of the used color powders.


The week before the festival the newspapers wrote articles about that every day. Educational, informative entertaining and preventive:

About schoolexams coinciding with the Festival...

About the dangers

About the bonfires the night before Holi.

We only saw haystacks being used for the bonfires, but apparently also other objects were made to be burned.

All advertisements in newspapers, magazines and on TV were themed around Holi.

The day after Holi there were fun and happy pictures in the papers:

But there was also bad news: children in a slum had gotten hold of color substances that were left in an abandoned leather tannery. These color powders turned out to be highly toxic.
About 170 children were rushed to hospitals, 1 of them died, 4 of them are now -4 days later- still in critical condition.

It reminded me in a way of our 31st of december. A happy eve. People gathering, toasting with champagne and lighting fireworks. Resulting in terrible deaths and wounded every year again.
Holi seems similar in certain aspects: fun, happy, united, playful, but with injured people every year. Lots of eye injuries and serious skin rashes.


Like I hope that private fireworks will be forbidden in Holland, I also hope that the safety of the powders is going to be regulated in India.


Let's all have a happy AND safe day/eve!!!