Hundreds of people visit the ‘A’ block building of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) daily. There are also several shops on the ground floor of the building.
Rajdhani Unnayan Karthipakkha (Rajuk) has asked the BSMMU authorities to demolish the building as it is at high risk in the event of any earthquake.
However, neither Rajuk nor the building authority is taking any steps in this regard.
Not just this building, Rajuk has identified 41 more such buildings in and around Dhaka city which are at high risk. Only one of these buildings has been demolished but the other buildings are still standing.
RAJUK sources said it carried out a ‘rapid visual assessment’ of a total of 3,252 buildings of government, semi-government and autonomous organizations in the capital and surrounding areas as part of its urban resilience project.
Subsequently a ‘Preliminary Engineering Assessment (PEA)’ was carried out to identify 579 comparatively sensitive buildings. The PEA flagged 42 buildings as too risky and in need of demolition.
Professor Mehedi Ahmad Ansari of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) was the chairman of the technical committee of the project.
He told Prothom Alo that according to the seismic map of the National Building Code, 42 buildings are very risky. As per the international standard, if the retrofitting cost of an old building is estimated to be more than 40 per cent of the cost of construction of a new building, it is recommended to demolish the building.,
This was the condition of these 42 buildings. However, the concerned authorities can preserve buildings with historical value through retrofitting.
