Economic Reporter :
Public Works Department (PWD) under the Ministry of Housing and Public Works (MoHPW) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) jointly launched a Project on Promoting Building Safety for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Public Buildings in Bangladesh (BSPP) in the city on Saturday.
Vice Chancellor, University of Asia Pacific Prof. Jamilur Reza Choudhury was present at the programme as the Chief Guest.
Joint Secretary of MoHPW, Rahamat Ullah Mohd. Dastagir, ndc and Additional Chief Engineer of PWD, Syed AzizulHaq were present as special guest.
Besides, Chief Representative of JICA Bangladesh Mikio Hataedaas was present as the Guest of Honour in the seminar.
chaired by Aminul Farhad, Additional Chief Engineer (P & SP) of Public Works Department, the seminar was attended by representatives from different ministries, relevant govt. agencies, donor agencies, national and international NGOs, universities and other relevant stakeholders.
Bangladesh is located at the southern region of the Himalayas, which is one of the most earthquake prone areas in the world. In the past, the Great Assam Earthquake that occurred more than 100 years ago in 1897 with magnitude of more than 8.0 caused severe damages to life and properties in Bangladesh, speakers said.
According to the speakers, some of the historical earthquakes occurred within Bangladesh, which provided damages to the country. The most recent Gorkha Earthquake in April 2015 killed over 8,000 people in the neighbouring country Nepal. Even in Bangladesh, more than 200 people were also injured including 4 deaths due to Gorkha Earthquake, although the epicenter was more than 400km far from the country.
Building risk including earthquake in Bangladesh is growing with every fast because of the rapid and unplanned urbanization and sub-standard construction of buildings. Even without earthquake, the collapse of Rana Plaza, a ready-made garment factory in April 2013 killed 1,135 people is one of the living examples of sub-standard construction of building in the country, they informed.
In order to protect the people’s living in Bangladesh, and to prop up the solid economic growth of the country, it is an urgent issue to promote efforts to strengthen the safety of buildings as well as reduce the disaster risk in urban areas. In “National Plan for Disaster Management, 2010-2015” the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) also identified that preparing to implement the efforts for strengthening the safety of buildings in urban areas is one of the top priority measures for disaster risk reduction in the country.
