As most buildings in Dhaka city are at high risk in the event of any major earthquake, experts at a programme urged the authorities to take strong measures to enforce building codes for constructing earthquake resilient buildings to minimize losses of lives and property.
In Dhaka metropolitan areas, buildings are not constructed following building code properly making it one of the vulnerable cities in the world to any powerful earthquake, they said this on Wednesday while speaking at the programme in the Milky Auditorium at city’s Khamarbari.
As many as 34 stalls of government and non-government organizations were set up at the fair displaying disaster management capabilities and preparedness.
Prof Dr Mehedi Ahmed Ansary of the Department of Civil Engineering at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) said it has proved that quake-resilient buildings are very much effective to protect lives and property in case of earthquake.
Referring to global experts’ opinions, he said quake-resistant buildings can save 90 percent lives of people during any powerful experiences and now all are giving importance on construction of quake resistant buildings to cut quake risk.
Prof Ansary said soil condition must be measured for preparing design of buildings but it is being ignored in the construction practices in the country.
At the programme, five presentations were made severally on different urban issues including CDMP’s contribution to urban risk reduction, sharing seismic atlas by ADPC, geo investigation for urban risk management and risk informed city planning.
