Did the proximity of the shacks lead to the destruction of the second shack in the fire incident on the Calangute beach?
Some shack owners opined that there was a need to increase the gap between shacks to prevent repetition of such incidents in future.
The President of the Traditional Shacks Owners Association, Manuel Cardozo said that they had time and again reminded the Tourism Department about the need to increase the space between shacks.
“We had insisted that when shacks are demarcated there should be a distance of at least 10 meters between the shacks and not four meters as has been the practice. If one shack catches fire then all the shacks in the same line will get burnt,” Cardozo said.
He also said that there has to be a rethink about the materials used to build beach shacks.
“The materials currently used like palm leaves should be changed to something new. We had asked the government to use tin on the roof,” he said.
