About 90 per cent buildings, mostly high rises in the capital, are vulnerable to earthquake and fire as they do not have any arrangements to face these disasters, said a survey report of a civic forum.

The survey was conducted on 100 structures during the months of September and October last year by the civic forum, Nagorik Sanghati and the report of the survey was disclosed at a press briefing at the Dhaka Reporters’ Unity on Tuesday.

‘We have conducted our survey on 100 major establishments in the capital, ranging from its old part to new part,’ said ASM Atiqur Rahman, the president of the Nagorik Sanghati.

But he did not clarify which buildings are vulnerable to earthquakes and fire, apart from the high rises and old buildings built without proper structures. He said they had conducted a random survey on all types of buildings.

Atiqur Rahman, also a teacher of the Social Welfare and Research Institute in Dhaka University, in reply to a question said, ‘Our survey team visited the buildings and enquired of the authorities concerned about their preparations for disaster management.’

The study revealed that seventy two per cent of the buildings did not have any arrangement to cope with the possible disasters while most of the other buildings having disaster management equipment were having insufficient equipments.

Only three per cent buildings conduct fire and earthquake drills on a regular basis, the survey said.

The survey team found that the Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence is an organisation with a small number of equipments and manpower.

‘Bangladesh fire service started with ten stations in Dhaka and after 38 years of its inception, it has only 11 fire stations in the capital,’ it said.

The survey team put forward a seven-point recommendation for immediate consideration.

The recommendations include demolition of the high-risk buildings, increasing the number of fire stations, equipping the fire service with adequate logistics and manpower and arrangement of fire and earthquake drills in all the high rise buildings regularly.

The study found that the Bashundhara City shopping complex had had its own fire fighting system.

Asked why Bashundhara City shopping complex’s own fire fighters failed to contain the fire in the quickest possible time, general secretary of Nagorik Sanhati, Sharifuzzaman Sharif, also a member of the survey team, said, ‘though the Bashundhara city did have the logistics to fight the fire, it might not have properly trained manpower and that’s why its top four floors went up in flames on Friday.’

Survey team members engineer Sardar Amin, Abdul Jabbar Mia and Nigar Dil Nahar were present, among others, on the occasion.

According to Fire Safety Code of 2003, each floor of a high rise building should have at least two fire extinguishers, hydrants, a water reservoir and a tank on the roof which will always preserve a certain amount of water.

Source: New Age