Earthquake-resilient construction Working with informal workforce

Because of its geological location, Bangladesh is a country highly susceptible to earthquakes and their secondary effects. This vulnerability, however, is continuing to increase as the consequences of rapid urbanisation, unplanned growth, the lack of governance, the unskilled labour force engaged in seismic-resistant construction, and inadequate preparedness.
According to a study under the Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme (CDMP), if an earthquake measuring 6 on the Richter scale occurred in Dhaka then, approximately 78,323 buildings could be destroyed. A 7.5 magnitude earthquake could lead to destruction of 72,316 buildings in the capital with 53,166 left partially damaged. In the case of an 8.5 magnitude tremor, 238,164 buildings across the country could be completely destroyed.
The Rana Plaza collapse on April 24 last year is a clear example of the lack of emergency preparedness on the part of both the government and the agencies concerned. The collapse of this single building killed 1,134 people and wounded more than 2,000 workers. Despite the severity of the incident, the government's 'allout action' and search and rescue operations took a total of 25 days to complete.
Logically, curiosity grows
If a moderate tremor was to hit causing collapse of thousands of buildings, how long would the government take to instate an effective search and rescue operation, taking into account the minimised level of preparedness and the big gap between the required equipment and the stock? This vulnerability worries all sensible people, when it comes to the lack of a skilled workforce to follow the seismic-resistant construction methods, in particular, masons, bar-binders, civil engineers, plumbers and labour contractors.
Construction of residential buildings (non-residential too) in Bangladesh is done primarily by an informal workforce. The majority of the workforce, however, has acquired little or no formal training or experience - most of them are learning through their inefficient trial and error process. Despite recent initiatives by the government to improve the seismic compliance in any new construction through incorporation of seismic designs in the building construction process, local masons and small contractors will continue to play a significant role in the building construction development. Therefore, by enhancing their skills about seismic resistance and subsequently improving the earthquake resistance of informal and non-engineered buildings, there will be a considerable reduction in loss of lives as well as properties following an earthquake.
Addressing the necessity of a larger skilled workforce, the government of Bangladesh has taken an initiative to train masons and bar binders through the Housing and Building Research Institute (HBRI). At present, the HBRI with the help of the CDMP is conducting training courses in earthquake risk-prone areas including Dhaka, Sylhet, Rangpur, etc. in order to impart this workforce basic knowledge about earthquake-resistant construction technology. However, this process is yet to be mainstreamed within differing departments of the government and the stakeholders at the non-government level. This process requires the exploration of alternative comprehensive strategies to be implemented in a coordinated way and ensure its positive and long-term impacts on the relevant labour force.
Here, the Oxfam's good practice can be disseminated. In 2012 the Oxfam jointly with two other nongovernmental organisations, supported a local group of masons, bar-binders and plumbers in the Sylhet City Corporation. The group known as the Sylhet Mason Forum consists of 30 masons working in different wards of the city. In addition to organising capacity-building training for forum members on multi-hazard resilient construction techniques, it ensures not only theoretical knowledge and understanding of risk resilient designs but also practical demonstration of retrofitting-targeted structures currently vulnerable to multiple hazards. By improving the capacities of ground level implementers to follow relevant construction practices, the vulnerability of buildings can be minimised to an acceptable level.
In addition to this, the forum is supported to organise their own monthly meetings, develop its constitution, arrange an office set-up  and  manage  a number of mass awareness campaigns. This  forum has turned into a formal support system, having their own savings in a bank account and currently aiming to register with the government as a  community-based organisation (CBO).
It has become evident to the Oxfam how it is beneficial to support such a formal forum in the earthquake-prone cites of Bangladesh as opposed to simply providing any lump sum. In order to achieve this, many initiatives, including creation of a pool of Master Trainers (MTs), could be implemented within each earthquake-prone area with participants picked from local engineers, masons, bar-binders and local contractors. These MTs will then be listed by the HBRI and made available on their website so that the trained workforces can be reached by individuals and other organisations in this sector. It is then expected that the trained and listed MTs will continue their efforts to disseminate the knowledge achieved by facilitating sessions at the grassroots level.
Alternatively, facilitation and motivation are required in order to build links of trained masons, bar-binders, engineers and architects with the HBRI, the Local Government Engineering Office, the Institute of Engineers (IEB), the Institute of Architects Bangladesh (IAB), town planning organisations and the private sector, so that the trained labour force is prioritised, when work is distributed.
The entire process will provide us with a trained workforce capable of working efficiently in earthquake-prone cities. Thus they will contribute to building earthquake-resilient infrastructure.
The writer is Programme Officer-Urban DRR, Oxfam. The opinions expressed here do                        not necessarily reflect  those of                                    the organisation                                    [email protected]