The Sylhet City Corporation is yet to prepare a list of risky buildings in the city when at least 50 rundown buildings have been posing threat to lives for years.
Besides, activities in a number of public and private buildings, which already had been declared vulnerable, are going on amid tremendous insecurity of life, sources in the city corporation said.
The SCC chief executive engineer, Nur Azizur Rahman, told New Age that no list of risky buildings was available with the office.
‘Risky buildings are identified when any building collapses at any place in the country. But the authorities have so far neither taken step to prepare a list of vulnerable buildings in the city, nor demolish them,’ he said.
Sources said the authorities during the immediate past army-backed interim government in 2008 identified more than 50 private and public buildings as ‘risky’ at different parts in the city.
They at that time had also decided to demolish the buildings but the job remained stalled after the present Awami League-led government came to power, the SCC sources said.
The Collectorate Building (old one) situated on the district administration compound, Cooperative Bank building, Woman Affairs Office, district food controller office, customs and VAT office, land surveyor’s office, Surma Market and SCC-run City Super Market at Bandarbazar and Sandhabazar at Jail Road are among the risky buildings, which were marked as vulnerable at that time, the sources said.
Later in the first week of June 2010, immediately after Dhaka’s Begunbari building collapse, the SCC authorities took a further initiative to prepare a list of the risky buildings in the city.
The ward councillors also had been asked for providing necessary supports to the corporation officials and employees in identifying the risky buildings at their respective wards. But, once again the initiative fell through.
Recently, the SCC authorities, in association with the Public Works Department, have set up signboards reading ‘risky building’ at several buildings used by the government offices.
‘But, the authorities so far did not take any step either to declare the buildings abandoned or to reconstruct them,’ an SCC official said, adding that the risky buildings are being used still date amid risk of massive casualties on the excuse of shortage of infrastructural facilities.
Mentioning that the Sylhet Civil Defence and Fire Service has no required equipment for conducting the rescue operation in case of any building collapse, the institution deputy commissioner, Erfan Ali Sonar, said the authorities should not spend any more time to take step regarding the vulnerable buildings in the city.
‘Massive casualties will take place if a building collapses in the city as we are not equipped to deal with any such situation,’ he added.
Additional deputy commissioner in Sylhet Enamul Habib told New Age that the old Collectorate Building was already declared abandoned.
‘The upazila nirbahi officers of the district also have been asked to inform us instantly if any vulnerable building was identified,’ the additional deputy commissioner said.
-With New Age input
