The government will not allow construction of any building without following the National Building Code from now on to avoid accidents including collapse by natural and man-made disasters, Minister of Housing and Public Works Mosharraf Hossain said yesterday.
The ministry has recently revised the Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) 1993 and planned to convert into a law for ensuring public safety, he added.
He said this while addressing the inaugural session of “International Seminar on Seismic Design and Good Practices of Building Construction for Safer Cities” held at the Radisson Blu Water Garden Hotel in the capital.
It is estimated that 50 million people are at risk of encountering Himalayan quakes in this area, many of them residing in the densely populated cities of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
According to Bangladesh Meteorological Department, the country has experienced around 116 seismic disturbances since January 2007, of which, epicenters of 60 events were in Bangladesh.
Considering the threat of an earthquake event, Bangladesh is taking measures to increase earthquake preparedness and promote risk reduction activities including revising building code, said the minister
“We could reduce the probable loss of life and properties to a minimum level by getting prepared for earthquakes by maintaining building code properly,” he said.
The two-day long seminar was organised by the Project for Capacity Development on Natural Disaster Resistant Techniques of Construction and Retrofitting for Public Buildings (CNCRP) with support of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Under this project, the government has been trying to make the country’s engineers able to asses and retrofit design for the existing vulnerable public buildings.
Citing examples of Rana Plaza, Spectrum factory and Phoenix Garments, Md Abdul Malek Sikder, director of the project, said all of them had collapsed because of faulty and weak foundation structures caused by violation of building code.
Moreover, citing a survey result of the project, Mikio Hataeda, the JICA chief in Bangladesh, said around 60% buildings in the country’s readymade garments sector were three to four times vulnerable than any building in Japan.
The survey was conducted on 55 garment factory buildings.
