‘2 lakh buildings in Dhaka vulnerable to earthquake’
More than 200,000 out of 350,000 buildings in the capital city are vulnerable to earthquake, said an expert working for the government funded Comprehensive Disaster Management Pro-gramme on Saturday.
‘The rate of engineered buildings that can withstand an earthquake of middle magnitude is 60 per cent,’ ASM Maksud Kamal said while addressing a workshop on ‘Disaster Risk Reduction and Media’ at the BIAM auditorium.
‘The sad chapter is that only 150,000 structures out of 3,50,000 in the city are engineered,’ he also said at the workshop organised by CDMP under the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management.
Director general of the Bureau of Disaster Management Md Farhaduddin, SM Morshed of CDMP, Aminul Islam of UNDP and Md Shah Alam of the Meteorology Department, among others, also addressed the inaugural session of the workshop. Director of CDMP Didarul Alam was in the chair.
Maksud Kamal said the capital city is vulnerable to the earthquake as the country is in an active region in terms of vertical and horizontal movement of tremor. The existence of an
active fault has been proved in Haluaghat of Mymensingh recently, adding further risk to the vulnerability, he added.
He said the susceptibility has also been further aggravated due to the indiscriminate extraction of ground water, pushing the underground aquifer to a dangerously low level in the capital.
The reality is contrary to a misconceived idea that
Quoting from recent studies, Maksud Kamal said Sylhet,
‘During the great Indian earthquake of 19th century when Sylhet and Dhaka were jolted, many deaths and massive damage took place due to that worst disaster,’ he said, adding that the part of present Bangladesh also felt another big tremor of Assam in the early 20th century.
Maksud Kamal described Basundhara and Banashree in the city as the most vulnerable areas to the earthquake and said, in some cases, buildings up to six stories and between 15 and 20 storeys are safer than those from six to 15 storeys.
Aminul Islam of UNDP said the countries like
But, he added,
Islam said a Tk 300 crore fund has been created by the government to deflate the affect of climate change but the relevant ministries are yet to formulate project to sustain in the face of adverse impact of climate change.
‘The country should take adaptation and mitigation policy to fight the affect of climate change for protecting its people from the wrath of nature,’ he said. Shah Alam of Metrology Department said the decision for adopting a new signal system about the weather would be implemented from April 30 this year.
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