MOON Desk: Over the recent years, scientists have come to recognize that Bangladesh is positioned at the juncture of several active tectonic plate boundaries.
Moreover, it sits atop the world’s largest river delta at close to sea level, facing both the risk posed by a quake and secondary risks of tsunamis and flooding in the quake’s aftermath, a recent findings of the scientists reportedly to have said.
Now that the vehement earthquake that has turned Turkeye and Syria the lands of the dead, has made the experts and researchers alarmed about Bangladesh, which lies in several active tectonic plate boundaries, it is learnt.
Some people are saying, the Turkeye-Syria earthquake might be a cue for any massive tremors to occur in the day to come.
Allah forbidding, if such furry pernicious disaster occurs,, then what preparedness we have had to face it, some experts have raised question.
“Have we had that technological and financial ability to face and tide over any such major disaster?” – is now also a buzz word among cross section of people of the country.
A question has surfaced in many thoughtful minds as to what mitigation approaches Bangladesh has had to face any such disaster?
Dhaka is on track to become the fourth most populous city in the world by 2030, yet unsafe construction practices continue to put the expected population of 28 million at alarming risk – especially if an earthquake occurs along the two major fault lines just 60 km from the city, a survey report of the geologically experts informed.
They say, Dhaka city, the soul of Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to the earthquake disaster due to high density of population, unplanned infrastructure and close proximity with India and Myanmar’s active seismic area, poor economic condition, poor emergency preparation and recovery capability.
The occurrence of earthquakes in an earthquake prone region cannot be prevented. Rather, all that could be done is to minimize loss of life and property.
The earthquake disaster mitigation approach should be followed by (i) pre-disaster physical planning of human settlements, (ii) building measures for minimizing the impact of disaster and (iii) management of settlements.
But have we got adequate measures to face these extreme oddities? There is not any suitable answer to this question.
