The minister for food and disaster management, Abdur Razzak, on Saturday said over 72,000 buildings in and around the Dhaka metropolis are at risk and they would collapse if an earthquake with a magnitude of over seven on the Richter scale hits the capital.
Inaugurating a two-day workshop on ‘Risk Resilient Infrastructures: Role of Education and Training at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology’ in Dhaka, he said academics of BUET could play an important role in reducing risk of disaster like earthquake by inventing modern technology.
As part of government initiative to face such disastrous situation and minimise the risk, the minister said about 62,000 volunteers have been trained up under the Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme.
Stressing community involvement side by side using of modern technology to reduce the risk of any kinds of disasters including the earthquake, he urged academics to give priority to the experiences of the people who faced destruction of natural calamities over the years.
Referring to recent cyclones Aila and Sidr that hit the country’s southwestern costal belts, the minister said, ‘We should use the experiences of the affected people on how they had restarted their lives by involving themselves voluntarily in reconstruction of damaged embankments within weeks of disaster.’
Razzak called upon all to work with united efforts to reduce risk of disaster as government alone could not do so.
BUET vice-chancellor Professor Nazrul Islam chaired the function also addressed, among others, by pro-vice-chancellor of the university Professor Habibur Rahman, national projector director of CDMP Abdul Qyaium and director of BUET-JIDUS Mehedi Ahmed Ansary.
CDMP and BUET- Japan Institute of Disaster Prevention and Urban Safety jointly organised the workshop.
Over 130 academics, experts and representatives of WASA, RAJUK, DESA, DESCO and other institutes including CUET are taking part in the workshop.
The objective of workshop is to assess the current status of architecture, engineering, urban and regional planning curricula in BUET and other institutes to obtain input from different practising professionals in this field to develop an outline for Master’s programme on disaster management.
A total of 14 papers on seven themes would be placed before the workshop that would be compiled after the function and recommended to include disaster management curricula for concerned institutes.
Professor Nazrul Islam urged the participants to use their knowledge for the well-being of the people and suggested them to study the people’s problems closely to take any decision or making any recommendations.
Mehedi Ahmed Ansari read out the keynote paper at the inaugural session of the workshop.
In the paper, he said poor quality control and lack of proper monitoring are the root cause of recent seven-storey building collapsed at Kathalbagan in the city.
He said thirty-seven per cent of the total land under metropolitan area is based on cannel or open water bodies and so infrastructures in the area are vulnerable to earthquake and urged Rajuk to make panel of engineers immediately to make an assessment to reduce risk of disaster.
