Major disaster can strike amid lack of preparedness

Anisur Rahman Khan :
Bangladesh is not well-prepared to face any major natural disaster like earthquake and experts have suggested creating awareness among the people, particularly in constructing buildings abiding by the building code to reduce the casualties.

An earthquake of magnitude 4.3 in Richter scale struck different areas including capital city Dhaka across Bangladesh on Friday morning leaving people in fear what great disaster would come to them if a major earthquake strikes the capital.

According to the United States Geological Survey website, the epicenter of the yesterday’s quake was 14 kilometres ESE of Dohar upazila. It was close to Sreenagar upazila of Gazipur, the USGS map showed.

The quake was at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles), the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said.
The jolt was felt around 6:00 am and no damage has been reported at the time of filing this report.

According to experts, a 2,500-km-long major fault line has developed beneath the surface of the earth from the Hindukush mountains up to Myanmar. This poses a serious threat of jolting the earth anytime that would be devastating for countries like Bangladesh lying only 100 km from it.

An earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale at the Madhupur fault line not far from Dhaka, might cause huge economic losses-a mind boggling USD 6.1 billion, which is about 50 per cent of the country’s annual national budget, experts said adding that an earthquake of such a magnitude could result in the death of 1,31,000 people and cause injury to innumerable others.

History of earthquakes says that a tremor of 8.7 magnitudes had jolted what is now Bangladesh in 1897 and no one can predict on earthquake and it could happen anytime.

“Bangladesh does not have adequate preparations and modern equipment to face such a catastrophe. Preparedness and awareness programmes needed to be taken up by the government to face such disasters in future. Apart from it, the people should construct buildings following the building code,” Mohammad Abdul Aziz Patwary. Director of Geological Survey of Bangladesh (GSB) told the New Nation on Friday.

However, experts also said that as many as 72,000 high-rise residential buildings and commercial centres in the capital may be destroyed due to their faulty constructions.

As Bangladesh is located in the quake-prone zone geographically and neighbouring countries are being hit frequently by powerful earthquakes, there is a possibility that Bangladesh might also face a similar devastating quake in future, experts worried.

According to experts, the Indian plate is very active and moving six centimetres in the direction of the downward slope under the Eurasian plate each year, while the Burmese plate is moving north-west.

Bangladesh sits where the three tectonic plates – Indian-Eurasia-Burma – meet. Currently, the Indian plate is moving to the north-east at a speed of approximately 6cm per year and the Eurasian plate is moving to the north at a speed of 2cm per year above the Indian plate.

There are five major fault zones in and around Bangladesh, namely Bogura fault zone, Tripura fault zone, Shilong Plateau, Dauki fault zone and Assam fault zone. Thus, Bangladesh is a location of 13 earthquake prone areas, and Chattogram, Chattogram Hill Tracts, and Jaintiapur of Sylhet remain in extreme risk zones. In 2022, Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, with 30,093 residents per square kilometer was among cities with the highest population density in the world.

A recent powerful earthquake of 7.8 magnitude on the Richter scale hit Turkey and Syria killing around 59,000 people. Scores more were injured and around 0.87 million people were displaced.

Earlier on May 1, a 4.6 magnitude earthquake shook Chattogram and some other parts of the country on Sunday noon, said the US Geological Survey (USGS). The tremor was felt around 12:56 pm.

According to the USGS the epicenter of the earthquake was at a depth of 98.8 kilometers (61.39 miles) near Mawlaik, Myanmar