The lead story in Thursday's STAR spoke of the tragedy that has affected one family and how negligence can have deadly effects.

According to the article a year-old baby was crushed to death when an old, abandoned house collapsed on him, killing him.

The mother of the child noted that the building did not appear to be collapsing and it was sudden. The family is now traumatised and finding it difficult to cope with the tragedy.

But we must consider the fact that this family may not be grieving as they are now, if someone had taken the time to remove the cause of the accident.

Poorer communities

There are quite a number of old houses across Jamaica, especially in the poorer communities. Some are inhabited, others are not, but at the end of the day what is being done to ensure that the infrastructure does not suddenly crumble years after it is erected?

Are our building codes being enforced? Government has been mandated with the responsibility to implement building codes and ensure enforcement.

While a lot of attention is being paid to the rules involved in putting up a building, what about checking them afterwards? Simply having building inspectors do annual checks of buildings and having those risky ones removed could save some lives.

So we implore the Government to recognise the importance of enforcing the building codes and implementing programmes, where necessary, to ensure that faulty buildings do not continue to place our citizens' lives at risk.