Disaster management amid quake risks

The deaths and destruction from the most severe earthquake this week, hitting Nepal with a magnitude of 7.8 - the highest one in 80 years -- have baffled the whole world. A series of its shocks and aftershocks occurred, hitting Bangladesh and India as well.
The aftershocks triggered widespread panic, causing death to a number of persons and injury to several hundred people, mostly readymade garment workers, in Bangladesh. Several buildings were left with cracks on the walls and/or were also tilted.
The severe nature of the quake in neighbouring Nepal is just a wake-up call for Bangladesh as it remains at the junction of three tectonic plates - the Indian plate, the Eurasian plate and the Burmese micro-plate.
The country is also on some active geological faults including - Dauki fault, located along the Meghalaya-Bangladesh border, Madhupur fault at Madhupur Tract and Burma fault parallel to Chittagong-Myanmar coast. Geologists say presence of active faults and the geological make-up together make Bangladesh potentially vulnerable to earthquake.
The Burma plate is reported to be overriding the Indian plate and at one point these plates would lock together and then get separated again, and that is when a 7.0-8.0 magnitude -- or even above it -- earthquake will jolt Bangladesh.
Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet cities are at a high risk of earthquake threat. The level of damage will be higher than the actual magnitude of the earthquake, due to unplanned urbanisation and lack of preparedness and awareness in this country.
According to a survey conducted under the Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme of the ministry of disaster management and relief operations in Dhaka city, out of 0.33 million buildings, 0.14 million are without any steel or rod structures and are thus at high risk of collapse.
If an earthquake of 7.5 magnitude or above this level occurs near Dhaka, about 90,000 people will die, 80,000 buildings and 12,000 schools will collapse, 15,000 electric polls will be damaged and 30 million tonnes of debris will be generated just after the accident in the capital, the survey says.
The capital's old town area is most vulnerable for the old buildings and narrow roads, while most of the buildings in new town have not been built or constructed following the National Building Code 1993.
The emergency response and disaster management system that is in place appears to be too inadequate to deliver even in case of a building collapse or a factory fire, as was witnessed in the case of the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013.
Unlike such natural calamities as flood and storm, earthquakes hit virtually without a warning. This makes it all the more important to put in place certain measures that would reduce the loss of life and limb, and damage to property. Mass awareness and strict enforcement of building codes are just two of them.
However, in both the cases, the country's overall performance is at a very poor level. Wilful violation of building codes is rampant. Unlawful and unauthorised land developments are going on unabated in almost all its major cities, towns and townships. There have been many examples where buildings, built illegally and with substandard materials, collapsed or tilted.
Meantime, campaigns to raise disaster awareness and preparedness at the individual and institutional levels is at a low ebb. The government is unable to take any meaningful action in this regard. However, it is really impossible for it to tackle the whole situation single-handedly. The participation of the non-government organisations (NGOs) and other bodies is also essential.
In addition to this, awareness at the individual level is deemed very important so that people, instead of being crammed into the exits of a building or workplace, have a reasonable degree of knowledge about do's and don'ts, during, and in the aftermath of, an earthquake.
The government is yet to complete comprehensive preparedness to face any calamity, caused by severe earthquake in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country. The capital city, having one vulnerable building out of every five, is at great risk of facing colossal damage in the event of a severe earthquake.
Earthquake preparedness in Dhaka -- the second most risky city after Tehran -- because of unplanned urbanisation, is very inadequate, and so also is the case with other cities of the country. The loss of life and property due to inadequate rescue operations will be widespread in Dhaka after any tremor compared to the possible damage caused by earthquake itself.
The government has so far failed to take initiative to retrofit vulnerable buildings like hospitals, schools and fire stations which might be used for victims' treatment, shelter and rescue operations after an earthquake. For example, Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the country's biggest one, is more than one hundred years' old and is likely to crumble even after a moderate tremor.
So is the condition of most of the government hospitals. It is unlikely that the authorities will be able to provide people with treatment if hospitals are damaged in the event of an earthquake. And damaged schools and colleges, which are used as shelters during disasters, will not also be able to accommodate the victims.
Indeed, there is a need for taking all-out comprehensive preventive and restoration-type measures to protect life and property in the event of a calamity. The government has so far trained 30,000 volunteers and created micro-zonation maps for Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet cities to set up buildings at risk-free areas.
But the moot point is that the government needs to realise that a piecemeal or any ad-hoc approach, will not yield any result. It needs to come up with a comprehensive plan and policy on disaster preparedness and management.
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