Govt must take steps to assess buildings

The government has to take immediate steps to conduct detailed engineering assessment of the existing buildings to minimise damage from possible tremors in the country, an expert of Buet said at a seminar on earthquakes yesterday.

The housing and public works ministry can compel owners of buildings, particularly those in earthquake-prone areas, to have engineering assessment of their structures through issuing gazette notification, said Prof Mehedi Ahmed Ansary of the civil engineering department of Buet.

A housing society can carry out assessments such as subsoil investigation, architectural and structural design at a cost of Tk 2 lakh to Tk 2.5 lakh per building, he said.

The seminar on "Earthquake Risk and Construction Practices in Bangladesh" was organised by Crown Cement and GPH Ispat at a hotel in the capital.         

Ansary, keynote speaker of the event, also urged the government to force owners to take measures if the assessment finds any flaws.

Mentioning Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet as earthquake-prone areas, Ansary stressed the need for raising mass awareness.

He believed it was possible to reduce loss due to earthquakes in Bangladesh if building codes are followed. 

The rate of urbanisation is much higher in Bangladesh, a developing country, than developed countries and this urbanisation is a crucial issue when it comes to earthquakes, said Prof M Shamin Z Bosunia, president of the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh.

Bosunia said factors like unsafe construction, narrow roads, unplanned filling of low-lying areas, risky electrical connections and little awareness contribute to risks in the event of an earthquake.

He said in construction works the most risky issues are ignoring rules of safe construction practices, constructing buildings without blue-print approvals from relevant authority and blasé attitude of the authorities concerned.

Brig Gen Ali Ahmed Khan, director general of Fire Service and Civil Defence, Rajib Saha, an assistant professor of civil engineering department at the National Institute of Technology, Agartala, India and Hameed Al Hasan, adviser of Crown Cement Group, also spoke.