An earthquake disaster reduction programme is necessary to cover the entire country, not just the metropolitan areas, to reduce the possible loss of lives and resources in earthquakes, said experts at the inauguration of a World Bank project yesterday.
Organised by World Bank, the event took place in a hotel in the capital where earthquake experts gathered to launch the project titled Bangladesh Urban Earthquake Resilience Project Phase II.
The experts agreed that, while much focus was given to the metropolitan areas in the earthquake risk reduction plans, the rest of the country was left out and therefore more vulnerable to possible earthquake disasters, as infrastructure in those areas were unplanned.
While addressing the event, noted earthquake expert Professor Jamilur Reza Chowdhury shared his experience on his recent visit to Sirajganj.
“Many buildings recently built in the villages have been built without proper plan. In some cases, even the roads are not built in a planned way. This is a cause for major concern,” he said.
He said while buildings’ designs were reviewed by proper authority in the metropolitan cities, in the villages union parisads were responsible for the job and were not properly equipped for it.
He said all development work should be monitored, including those in the rural areas.
Monzur Hossain, senior secretary of Local Government Division, said many stakeholders were involved in emergency response and disaster risk reduction programmes, and sometimes it was difficult to coordinate the overall work among all parties involved.
He urged all agencies to work in a coordinated way to minimise people’s sufferings during any disaster response.
Professor Chowdhury stressed on capacity building of rescue teams and availability of required equipments as well.
Christine Kimes, operations adviser at World Bank’s Bangladesh Office, said the World Bank currently had about $800m invested in the on-going projects in disaster risk reduction and disaster management.
She said this was projected to increase to about $1.2bn in the coming fiscal year.
Sylhet City Corporation Mayor Ariful Haque said most of the buildings in Sylhet were old and around 70% of the buildings were not built following proper design requirement.
He said a good amount of money was spent after any disaster, but loss of lives and assets could be avoided if money was invested to make a city disaster-resilient.
Brig Gen Ahmed Khan, director-general of Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence, said the country’s main challenge was essentially to improve the emergency response and preparedness, develop strong capacity to manage risks and build the country resilient to natural disasters.
With the project, World Bank aims to enhance the capacity of municipal bodies in Dhaka and Sylhet to effectively prepare for, respond to and recover from small and large disaster events.
