Efter de seneste alvorlige jordskælv i Japan og Burma er den bangladeshiske seismolog Humayun Akhters alvorligt bekymret over den mangelende manglende forberedelse på en lignende katastrofe i det tætbefolkede asiatiske land.
FNs nyhedstjeneste IRIN, har fulgt hans arbejde en dag.
DHAKA, 4 April 2011 (IRIN): IRIN spent a day with Humayun Akhters who has been running the Dhaka University Earth Observatory (DUEO) network in Bangladesh since it was set up in 2003.
His task on the day was to visit 2 earthquake monitoring stations – the first at Madhupur, around 160 km to the north of Dhaka.
During the six-hour journey to Madhupur, past pineapple plantations and through patches of the Madhupurer Gor forest area, Akhter expressed deep concern about Bangladesh’s lack of preparedness for an earthquake.
His main worry is that although the government gave DUEO permission to install seismic equipment on its property, the data is not shared with the government’s meteorology department, which lacks nationwide seismic data coverage.
“Although it’s not possible for any government to handle this alone, our government is not giving enough importance to the issue.”
Akhter believes this may be the result of misconceptions about the likelihood of a massive earthquake in Bangladesh.
“Although earthquakes do not occur frequently in Bangladesh, high magnitude earthquakes can occur in low frequency zones,” he told IRIN.
Furthermore, Akhter warns that the effects of an earthquake would be catastrophic for the densely populated capital, Dhaka, which the World Bank ranked as the world’s ninth largest city in 2010. The city is surrounded by several active faults, and it mostly lies on alluvial sediment, which makes buildings more vulnerable to shaking.
He said compliance with the national building code is low, so most buildings lack adequate foundations, and the code has not been updated since it was published in 1993.
“In other nations, seismic risk maps are updated every two to three years – it’s a continuous process.”
In 2009, a study by the government’s Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme estimated that a 7,5-magnitude earthquake from the Madhupur Fault would instantly kill more than 130.000 people.
