There was a time earthquakes were as unfamiliar in Bangladesh as the appearance of comets. Old people here can hardly remember any tremor paw-jjffuhenoygh to linger in the memory |^ecause of Its

In fearsome,contrast ’to yiat at least three quakes jolted this land during the current year with the Chittagong one taking a toll of public and private property and quite a number of lives. with some being buried alive.

From housing to roads and town planning, nothing in our construction and community layout activities we had ever thought of keeping the quake factor in consideration. Now, all of a sudden. we are being told to expect the quakes to hit us with increasing frequency as well as intensity since we are technically placed on a very quake-prone zone. Can nature be so unfair to us as to sud-denly mount such a campaign? Or is it that we have failed to take a timely note of our physical, geo-morphological facts? Earthquake will continue to be unpredictable into much of the next century. So preparedness must be materialised to minimise the impact of quakes as much as possible with the existing knowledge of planning and building for earthquakes. Town planning, city development, construction of roads and buildings must now incorporate the quake factor. And people must be motivated not to scare but to face the disaster with knowledge and compassion, logic and co-operation.

We know there will ever be more pressing problems before the society than preparing for quakes. But one must heed what experts have said on Wednesday at the Disaster Forum Seminar. They as good as gazed into a quake of the century to hit Bangladesh any day in the next few years. So it will be foolish to treat the thing as something remotely possible and push aside the question of quake preparedness.