The incidence of building collapse has been steadily on the rise for the last two decades claiming lives of hundreds of people and injuring thousands of others, especially in the capital and on its outskirts. Before Wednesday’s tragic incident in Savar, well over 150 people lost their lives while more than 5,000 were injured, many of them disabled for life, over a period of 18 years between 1995 and 2013, according to a police estimate.
The death toll of some 250 people in Wednesday’s tragedy in Savar will push the total number of people perished in the building collapses to 400 while the figure of those wounded in the incidents well beyond 6,500.
According to a 2010 report of the Ministry of Housing and Public Works, the number of “unsafe buildings” in the capital is as many as 80,000. However, the Ministry of Disaster Management put the figure of “unsafe buildings” in Dhaka at 72,000.
It has been learnt from reliable sources that some 50 buildings in the capital city have developed cracks in them since 1997. Among them, there is one building at Jhilpar area of Basabo and another at Dakkhin Khan. The incidence of crack in the Concord Grand Tower at Shantinagar is worth mentioning.
-With The Independent input
