Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha on Monday sued the developer and land owner of an eight-storey building at Kathalbagan in the city that tilted toward a bordering building after two of its floors subsided on Sunday night.
The city development authorities on Monday filed the case accusing real estate company A Asian Comtech BD Ltd managing director Shamsuddin Majumder and land owner Alamgir Hossain of violating the building code in constructing the building on a lowland.
Faulty construction, weak piling and violation of the building code might have caused the subsidence of the building, RAJUK officials said.
Kalabagan police officer-in-charge Nasirul Alam told New Age that RAJUK’s authorised officer-1 Aminur Rahman alias Sumon had filed the case with the police station at around 12:30pm against the real estate company and the landowner.
After visiting the scene earlier in the morning, state minister for housing and public works Abdul Mannan ordered the city development authorities to file a case against the builder and landowner.
Local lawmaker Fazle Noor Tapos also visited the scene. Fazle Noor Tapos told reporters, ‘It seems that there is no guardian of the city. Most of the real estate companies hardly go by the law.’
A five-member committee led by a joint secretary of housing and public works ministry has been formed to investigate the incident. Representatives from the army engineering corps and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology have been included in the committee.
A four-member expert team led by former BUET vice-chancellor AMM Shafiullah visited the spot in the morning and blamed foundation failure for the tilting of the building.
Monir Hossain, an assistant director of fire service and civil defence, told New Age, ‘The expert committee would decide when the tilted building would be dismantled and whether the building next to it would also be pulled down.’
The building, Asian Haider Cottage, on Free School Street, started subsiding about 10:00pm with loud cracks and it tilted towards the abutting 20-storey Nasir Tower at about 11:00pm Sunday.
Fire service and civil defence assistant director Manir Hossain, who visited the place, told New Age that cracks had developed on the fourth floor of Nasir Tower and ‘probably it was caused by the tilted building.’
A tin-shed house collapsed because of the tilting of Haider Cottage. The people living in the tin-shed house, however, escaped unhurt.
Fire fighters evacuated 100 families from nearby buildings fearing collapse of the two abutting buildings.
Local people said Asian Comtech BD Ltd had started construction of Haider Cottage in December 2008 by filling a pond with dirt and the piling had not been done properly.
The building’s caretaker Abbas Ahmed told New Age that cracks had developed on the ground floor of the building at around 10:00am Sunday.
‘Two beams of the building collapsed with loud cracks at around 11:00pm Sunday. Minutes later, two more beams collapsed triggering subsidence of the ground floor,’ he said.
He said that hearing the cracks, some construction workers, who were staying on the fourth floor to give final touches to the structure, came out unhurt.
