There are three points to be made in apportioning blame and responsibility for the tragedy at the opening of the new IKEA store in Jeddah late last week.
First, we must mention simple greed and a lack of awareness. Those two led to thousands of people gathering in front of the main gate to be one of the first 50 customers to enter the store and, as a member of that small group, to receive a prize.
The second was a failure on the part of the store management to plan properly for the opening and not to see the effect of their own advertising. The store’s main entrance was simply too small for the large number of customers who came and the pushing and shoving that resulted had tragic results. Five hundred riyals is not worth a life.
The third entity at fault were the authorities themselves. Why did they not step in and supervise the organization of the opening? The same government department that gave IKEA the license to open a new store should have made sure that the store’s management was capable of organizing the opening. The very idea of making all shoppers enter from only one door is a strange one. What about emergency doors?
The free coupons that were offered to shoppers turned out to be very expensive indeed. They were not free since some shoppers paid with their lives and others with injuries.
