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Major earthquake to kill 2.6 lakh in capital

Govt official tells international seminar

Staff Correspondent
An estimated 2.61 lakh people will be killed in Dhaka city alone due to building collapses in the event of a major earthquake striking midnight, a top government engineer said yesterday, citing the findings of Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme.
The figure would be 2 lakh if it happens in midday, said Md Abdul Malek Sikder, additional chief engineer of the Public Works Department (PWD), on the concluding day of a two-day international seminar on seismic design and building retrofitting for safer cities.
Nearly 73 percent of 3.26 lakh buildings in the capital may collapse beyond repair during such a seismic event, he told the seminar, jointly organised by PWD and Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) at a city hotel.
Citing the same findings, Malek, also project manager of the Capacity Development on Natural Disaster Resistant
Techniques of Construction and Retrofitting for Public Buildings (CNCRP), said the death figure was estimated at 95,183 in Chittagong and 20,709 in Sylhet if a strong earthquake occurred at midnight.
Nearly 78 percent of 1.82 lakh buildings would collapse beyond repair in Chittagong, while 98 percent of 52,000 buildings would collapse in Sylhet, he said.
The three cities together would suffer an aggregated economic loss of $20,000 million due to the damage of properties, he said.
Poor construction, absence of engineering, reinforcement, and seismic assessment, and non-compliance with the national building code are the causes of vulnerability, said Malek.
Rescue, research and rehabilitation work would be extremely difficult due to the number of collapsed buildings, he said, adding that vulnerability assessment and retrofitting under the CNCRP scheme appeared impossible, as most buildings did
not have design and construction documents.
Linder the CNCRP, the PWD with Japanese technical assistance has so far assessed 55 readymade garment factory buildings for retrofitting.
Malek said the government should seek foreign fund to train technical professionals on retrofitting, encourage private owners for retrofitting and compliance with the building code and preparing documents on all the buildings.
Prof Jamilur Reza Choudhury, a leading civil engineer and vice-chancellor of the University of Asia Pacific, said 90 percent of the buildings in the country were nonengineered, which meant they were built without the consult of an architect.