With the recent 4.1 magnitude earthquake that shook Teknaf recently leading to many buildings being found to have formed cracks as a result, it is high time that we started looking into how sound our urban landscapes are in case earthquakes of even higher magnitudes were to hit our cities.
A joint survey carried out in 2009, by the Integrated Comprehensive Disaster Management Program and Jica, had revealed that in case an earthquake of magnitude 7 or more is felt in Bangladesh, around 72,000 buildings in major cities such as Dhaka, Chittagong, and Sylhet would collapse while 135,000 buildings would be damaged.
A lot of the problems reside with how unplanned our urbanization has been, especially with regards to our capital city -- 60% of all buildings were constructed after changes were made to the original design, which has further fuelled fears that these unplanned buildings may collapse almost immediately were a major earthquake to hit.
It is good to know, then, that the relevant authorities are indeed taking the looming threat of earthquakes into consideration, as the quakes in Turkey and Syria have prompted our fire services and civil defense into formulating a 14-point plan in accordance with the national plan for disaster management.
However, preparedness can only do so much, as the brunt of our problems lie with our unplanned, scattershot urbanization that leaves little room for structural integrity. Dhaka is a city that is all but built on top of itself and the administration needs to understand that thorough urban planning is the only way forward.
