Everyone raises their voice when any incident such as collapse of a building or fire in a building in any part of Dhaka city or its adjacent areas. But after a while the situation becomes normal again. As a result, the residents of Dhaka have been living in extreme risk for years.
Experts attribute the frequent building collapses to faulty design, poor construction workmanship, material failure or lack of non-compliance of building codes and regulatory requirements.
Seven people, including two women and a child, were injured when a three-storey house overturned in Dhaka's Keraniganj on Friday. The upazila administration had declared five houses in the vicinity of the collapsed building abandoned.
Keraniganj Upazila Assistant Commissioner Sanjida Parveen (South Keraniganj Revenue Circle) told Bangladesh Post that cracks developed in five houses around the overturned house. That is why they have sealed five buildings.
Faulty construction and poor workmanship are said to be the major causes of structural and building failures as happened today in Keraniganj where there was no adequate piling work.
Piling is defined as being foundations that are driven or bored through the ground along a certain length of area to carry and transfer loads to soil considered to be weak in structure due to the soil conditions.
Some 26 peoples were killed in the last year due to fire at the FR Tower at Banani in the capital in 2018. After that RAJUK started work to identifying the risky buildings. Since then no visible progress has been made in this regard.
Rajdhani Unnyan Kartipakkha (RAJUK) surveyed 204,000 buildings in different parts of Dhaka from January to August 2018. These buildings are 3 storeyed or 6 in height. It found in the survey that 9 out of 10 buildings were built without approval and design. Out of 2 lakh 4 thousand 106 buildings, 1 lakh 34 thousand 625 buildings have been constructed violating the rules.
BUET conducted a survey on 112 buildings in 2012, which was approved by the Fire Service, DESA (Current name-DESCO), WASA, and the Department of the Environment found that only two buildings complied with all their construction policies.
In 2008, the Occupancy Certificate Act was amended by amending the Building Construction Act. According to the provisions, after the construction of the building, a committee comprising representatives of RAJUK and experts will issue a clearance for use to see if the building is being constructed in accordance with the approved design and all the rules. Then gas and power lines will be given. However, most of the time it is not being followed.
Architect Iqbal Habib told Bangladesh Post, RAJUK is the main and first responsible for the dilapidated condition of the buildings in Dhaka city or the buildings that have turned into death pits. The second responsible authority is City Corporation, which is because of their negligence and corrupt officials. This situation would not have happened if they had worked. Some of them illegally cooperated in the construction of the building without following the rules. "
Iqbal Habib added, "RAJUK is doing land and flat business without doing its main job. And when people die, they say the building is unauthorized. RAJUK is responsible for this unauthorized building. That is why they should be punished. "
Eminent urban planner Iqbal Habib said, “RAJUK has turned as a useless organisation. Thousands of people are facing death threats as they are living in risky buildings as RAJUK has failed to ensure proper monitoring.”
Continuous building collapse and fire incidents are a matter of huge concern. The authorities concerned must take proper steps in this connection, he added.
RAJUK has identified around 350 buildings in Dhaka metropolis as high risk. Although 11 years have passed since the list of risky buildings was made, RAJUK has not taken any visible steps to demolish those. A lot of people are still living in many buildings that are at the risk of collapse. However, it claimed that many houses in the neighborhood were not included in the list.
