Chattogram: Experts in a seminar here yesterday apprehend disastrous impacts on the country's economy besides unpredictable human casualty without a timely, pragmatic, and comprehensive preparedness plan to mitigate and recover from the future earthquake catastrophe. Terming the recent frequent tremors as an SOS signal of a possible higher magnitude earthquake in the future, they opined that all industrial and economic Key Point Installations (KPIs) on both banks of the Karnaphuli river, including Chattogram Seaport, CEPZ, KEPZ, Ctg Airport, elevated expressway, submarine cable network, Karnaphuli tunnel, energy and fuel supply facilities including Eastern Refinery, infrastructures attached to the Cox's Bazar sea beach zone, and under-construction Matarbari Deep Sea Port are at great risk of a bigger scale earthquake.
According to Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, the Institute of Engineers Bangladesh (IEB), Chattogram Centre and Chattogram Development Authority (CDA) jointly organized the seminar on 'Earthquake Risks in Bangladesh: Impacts on National Economy' at the IEB center with its chairman Eng Manzare Khorshed Alam in the chair. Speakers also suggested that the authority should set the earthquake mitigation and preparedness plan as a national priority considering the geographical risk factors as well as routine tests of all buildings and infrastructures which might lessen damages to a great extent.
Eminent seismologist and former VC of Chattogram University of Engineering and Technology (CUET) Prof. Dr. Md Jahangir Alam presented the keynote paper of the seminar. CDA Chairman Eng Nourul Karim, Ex-CUET VC Prof. Mozammel Haque, Divisional President of Association of Engineers Bangladesh Eng Selim Md Jane Alam, and IEB, Chattogram center Secretary Eng. Khan Md Aminur Rahman, among others, took part in the discussion.
Prof. Dr. Jahangir Alam in the keynote paper said nearly four lakh buildings in 41 wards under Chattogram City Corporation, almost all school buildings, and public and private healthcare facilities are severely vulnerable. 'As the region experienced no significant seismic activity in the last 50 years, the unchecked development has resulted in little resilience to earthquakes,' he said. Identifying the buildings and infrastructures of high seismic vulnerability is critically important for reliable loss estimation caused by any earthquake, he added.
Prof. Dr. Jahangir said a large number of old buildings along with new buildings being constructed without following the Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC)-2020 in 1528 square kilometer areas of greater Dhaka City with a population of 16 million is under high risk of economic and human losses during a high magnitude tremor. The issue should be addressed urgently before time runs out. He emphasized the importance of taking natural catastrophe resistant and resilient measures in the design and construction of Matarbari Deep Seaport, which can be treated as Bangladesh's future 'Mini Singapore' transshipment hub to protect the giant installation from any natural calamities like tremor, Tsunami, and tidal surge.
Prof. Jahangir Alam stressed the need to translate all volumes of BNBC-2020 from English to Bengali and urged for the guidelines to be quickly distributed to all stakeholders and policymakers for its proper execution so that earthquake compliance guidelines can be supervised before and after the approval of infrastructures. 'We have huge manpower in multi-sectoral engineering disciplines who could contribute to the earthquake mitigation process and supervision if initiatives are taken to utilize their talent with effective use of AI,' he stated. He laid emphasis on creating awareness among people rather than spreading panic and depicting a frustrating picture and advocated for multinational collaboration to mitigate and minimize earthquake-related damages.