With the country shaken three times in just 32 hours and bearing a history of major earthquakes, experts yesterday urged the government to take immediate and coordinated action to minimise casualties and damage.
Infrastructures with high public gatherings like schools, hospitals and critical facilities should be checked without delay, said Israt Islam, a professor at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET).
Inspecting buildings is a major task, she said, adding that government buildings must be checked by the government and private building owners must be compelled to carry out inspections.
"This can be done immediately, and it will reduce the risk," she said at the roundtable titled "Wakeup Call for Dhaka: Earthquake Risks and Public Safety" organised by The Daily Star at its office in Dhaka.
About the hospital readiness, she said the health authorities should identify in the shortest time possible how many hospitals are equipped to handle patients from disastrous events like an earthquake.
"After an earthquake, hospitals won't treat routine illnesses -- they will treat injured people," she said.
If an 8-magnitude earthquake occurs, over 2 lakh deaths and 4 lakh injuries are feared, said Tajul Islam, director of operations of Fire Service and Civil Defence.
"How will we treat these patients? Hospitals must be prepared, but 40 percent of the hospital buildings may be in affected zones. We need field hospitals immediately."
He stressed on the golden hour, which is crucial for saving lives.
"We must clear routes, ensure emergency access and coordinate all agencies under the ministry of disaster management and relief."
Field hospitals must have doctors, power backup, oxygen and first-aid capabilities.
"We must identify alternative routes like helicopter and water access as 60 percent of the land routes could be unusable."
He called for a national earthquake rehearsal involving fire service, armed forces, paramilitary, health sector, local government and city corporations.
Mehedi Ahmed Ansary, a professor at BUET's Department of Civil Engineering, urged the government to start the assessment of the buildings immediately and finish within six to nine months.
The buildings should be categorised into three colours: green, yellow and red. The buildings under the red category should immediately be retrofitted, he said.
"Each building must be individually checked as adjacent buildings can vary in quality. Countries like Japan and India use third-party assessments and Bangladesh should do the same. Rajuk alone cannot manage 21 lakh buildings in Dhaka."
The cost of assessment is Tk 2 lakh per six-story building, while retrofitting costs around Tk 50 lakh -- far cheaper than dealing with collapses, rescue and loss of life, he added.
Md Bodruddoza Mia, chairman of the Department of Geology at Dhaka University, emphasised early earthquake education, citing the case in Japan, where children are taught in school what to do before, during, and after an earthquake.
He suggested incorporating earth science education at the school and university levels in Bangladesh as the majority of the students do not have the required knowledge on this.
"Even at Dhaka University during the recent earthquake, students jumped from the fourth floor -- this should never happen. Nowhere else in the world do people do this during an earthquake. Lack of knowledge caused this panic."
He suggested establishing a dedicated earthquake research institute in Bangladesh where students could work on seismology with proper incentives.
People are filling lowlands and water bodies, turning them into plots, constructing narrow roads and building large structures beside them, said Adil Mohammed Khan, president of the Bangladesh Institute of Planners.
"But the structural quality is ignored -- soil condition, land spanning, and proper design are not considered."
The authorities responsible for monitoring building structures and land development are extremely negligent, he said.
If all 21 lakh buildings in Rajuk areas are considered, around 8.4 lakh could collapse, and even among 6 lakh engineered buildings, around 75,000 would collapse if an earthquake of 7 magnitude strikes, said Abdul Latif Helaly, former chief engineer of Rajuk.
The potential death toll could be 2.1 to 3.1 lakh, with 2 to 5.5 lakh injured, causing direct economic losses of $25 billion and reconstruction costs of $62 billion, he said.
Rajuk had assessed 3,252 buildings including schools, colleges and hospitals in 2022 and had recommended the demolition of 42 buildings and the retrofitting of 200 buildings. However, the work is stalled due to project delays, he said.
The city corporation continuously works on disaster preparedness, said Md Sirajul Islam, chief town planner of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC).
For example, through the Resilience Project, DSCC set up an Emergency Operations Centre, the most active centre in Bangladesh.
"Since earthquakes are extremely dangerous and cannot be accurately predicted in advance, our primary responsibility as the media is to raise public awareness and put appropriate pressure on policymakers -- this is our main objective," said Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of The Daily Star.
The Daily Star has published a series of reports on earthquakes. However, after some time, policymakers tend to forget the issues, he said.
"We do not have the expertise to formulate policies like specialists. Our ability lies in delivering information to the public. From this perspective, we request that scholars and journalists work together to take real, effective action."