Interview With Saidur Rahman & Others

Bibliography :MH Ali and JR Choudhury, Assessment of seismic hazard in Bangladesh, Disaster Research Training and Management Centre, Dhaka University, Dhaka, 2001; JR Choudhury and MH Ali, Seismic Zoning of Bangladesh, paper presented in the Seminar on Recent Development Earthquake Disaster Mitigation, Organised by IEB and TAEE, Dhaka, 1994; KM Hossain,Tectonic significance and earthquake occurrences in Bangladesh, 7th Geological Conference, Bangladesh Geological Society, 1989.

How prepared are we for an earthquake?

Interview with Director of Disaster Preparedness Centre

          Muhammad Saidur Rahman is Director of Bangladesh Disaster Preparedness Centre, which has been working since 1991 in the field of capacity buildingof institutions, government and non-government, engaged in disaster management. The organization basically does research, policy formulation, strategy formulation etc. At the moment, it is working on capacity building of government organisation in case an earthquake hits the country. Mr. Rahman is a former college teacher of chemistry. He has also served as the deputy secretary general of Bangladesh Red Cross (now Crescent) Society as well as the country director of Oxfam. The interview was taken by Kaushik Sankar Das.

 Daily Star (DS): Bangladesh, used to be called a country of natural disasters thanks to regular floods, cyclones etc. is recently struck by a new disaster, earthquake, in the coastal area and the hill tracts of Chittagong though there has not been much damage. Could you tell us how vulnerable we actually are in terms of a severe earthquake in the country?

        Saidur Rahman (SR): A world famous seismologist Professor Billham said in 2001 that in the Himalayan region, at least seven earthquakes of the strength 8.1 and above on the Richter scale are overdue. A team of experts led by him did a survey and they identified seven to eight risk prone countries and Bangladesh is obviously one of them because of its geographical location. Secondly a study by a UN sponsored programme called International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction in the period from 1991 till 2000 surveyed at least 30 different cities. And the findings of the survey are very threatening to us. They are saying that the two most vulnerable cities to earthquake are Tehran and Dhaka. There were several factors to come to this conclusion. For example situation in an earthquake zone, physical infrastructure, socio-economic condition of the people living there and most importantly response management.

DS: But why Dhaka? It's not listed in the primary earthquake zone in the region.

          SR: Because Dhaka got zero points in the main categories. Thickness of buildings, poor quality of construction, poor socio-economic condition of people and above all poor response management were the main negative factors for Dhaka when the survey was done in 1998. All these put together Dhaka was on the top along with Tehran as the most vulnerable

cities when it comes to earthquake in the world.

DS: Has the situation changed since then?

         SR: Well, let me put it this way -- we are more aware of the risks now than ever before. And the serious earthquake in Bhuj in Gujarat was responsible for the renewed awareness. A lot of people working in this sector went there including myself. One thing that really struck me was

that those organisations or institutions, responsible to help or rescue after a disaster hits, get affected by the disaster themselves, then how the response management would be put into effect. For example, the hospital, the water supply system in Bhuj were completely destroyed.

DS: Do similar flaws exist in Dhaka as well?

        SR: More than enough, in fact the situation is worse in some cases. The fire brigade headquarters is situated in old Dhaka, if an area like that with narrow lanes and a huge population, is effected then what kind of help can we expect. Also the way utility services like WASA, DESA, Titas Gas have their supplies in densely populated areas, it would be not just

difficult but impossible to some extent to response to a disaster similar to the one in Bhuj. It takes them fifteen days to fix only one burst gas pipeline. Need I say more?

        My realisation after visiting Bhuj was that this is not like other disasters like flood and cyclone. The speed with which government and non-government organisations can respond in those situations, is not possible when it comes to earthquake. Because the first job in earthquake is to rescue trapped people from inside collapsed buildings. And who can do this job better than those with proper equipment and training. For that we can only rely on government institutions. On my return, my organisation and Oxfam jointly went to meet the Minister for Disaster Management and Relief and he immediately bought the idea. And for the first ever time, national sensitisation seminar was held in Dhaka in March last year where the responsibilities of various government institutions in times of an earthquake were identified. The heads of all organisations attended the seminar and interestingly, but not unexpectedly, it was revealed that none of these organisations had any contingency plan. It never crossed anyone's mind that an earthquake can hit anytime and create such a havoc for which an integrated management was essential.

DS: Why do you think the government failed to sit up and take note of the situations from the devastating earthquakes in Kobe and then in Gujarat, especially since Bangladesh has remained as an earthquake prone zone for a long time?

        SR: I think the government's priority and orientation changed mainly after the devastation in Bhuj in Gujarat. After the seminar last year, the Ministry took a lot of initiatives. The first one was that the capacity of the organisations would be developed. Six meetings were held and they were attended not only by the heads of the seventeen organisations, but also the minister, the mayor of Dhaka and other officials. And the outcome of those meetings could be described as some success, if not more. I wouldn't say they are hundred percent capable as yet, but they are definitely more sensitised to a crisis than ever before. They are ready to do something at least if a disaster strikes.

Secondly, to do something, not just awareness, they need some specialised equipment too. The government has been arranging with our help to hold a mock demonstration in old Dhaka to show physically what should be done immediately when an earthquake strikes. Since Sylhet and Chittagong region are also very vulnerable to earthquake, similar initiatives have also been taken to train members of government organisations for immediate response to earthquakes.

          We have to remember that basic responsibility to protect the life and property of people

lies with the government and the government has the capacity and

resources to do that.

          There is a government standing order for disasters. It describes the responsibilities of all the government organsiations from the PM's office to local Union Parishad in times of disasters, but earthquake is not included in the order. It was written a long time ago and revised in 1995. At the moment we are working on how to include earthquake in that

standing order.

 DS: If the organizations are more aware and capable of tackling a crisis of this nature, then why have there been reports of no government assistance after the recent tremors in Chittagong and Rangamati?

         SR: I would take it as a positive thing, because at least as soon as the reports of tremors began to trickle in, all these organisations were on alert and they were also alerted by the deputy commissioners. Since the damage was not severe in Chittagong City, nothing was seen. But if it was, maybe we would have witnessed those in action.

DS: Let's take a hypothetical scenario. If a severe earthquake strikes

in Dhaka city with narrow lanes, badly planned housing estates etc, are these organisations well prepared to respond immediately to the crisis, for example rescuing trapped people from collapsed houses?

               SR: In one word -- no. They are not well equipped, though they are more sensitized. But at the same time Bangladesh Army has a contingency plan, Bangladesh Fire Brigade and Civil Defence Directorate has a contingency plan, Titas Gas has a contingency plan, WASA has a plan but all these organisations do not have proper equipment. That's why the ministry has

requested for a list of equipment from them. I don't know whether enough funds would be granted to buy the equipment, but I hope the government will take some initiative to arrange the fund.

DS: Apart from lack of equipment, which are the other areas that could pose a serious threat to the rescue work?

         SR: First of all, there are very few cities in the world like Dhaka that have developed in such an unplanned manner. Building codes are never followed here. Secondly, there are no specific projects or ideas to keep us safe from earthquakes. For example, projects aided by Japan have specified certain areas in densely populated cities like Tehran, Manila, Turkey where specific laws would have to be adhered to in case one wants to build a new house, vulnerable buildings have been identified etc. Here we all know that there are codes but they are hardly implemented.

 DS: But are those organizations responsible for ensuring the rules included in the programme that the government has taken up?

          SR: Of course, RAJUK is one of the seventeen organisations who are part of this process. The RAJUK chairman attended two meetings; the additional chief engineer attends all the meetings. They are planning ways to revise the building code and make it more effective for

implementation. Then there are practical problems like lack of open spaces in the city where the affected people can be taken after a tremor. We are hoping that after the sensitisation process, we would be able to make proper use of our limited resources in a planned manner. We can at least reduce the risk, if nothing more. Take for example an area like old Dhaka. Even if the government wants, it can't relocate the inhabitants somewhere else, but the government can identify the empty spaces and playing fields that still exists there and make proper use of them. In a poor country like Nepal, the government decided to retrofit some schools, it means the buildings have been made earthquake proof by spending a little extra. Even the carpenters and masons are being trained. Here forget them, even the architects are not fully aware of the risks. So it's a long way to go.

             What I want to say is that it's not the resources, it's the will that is required. And the ministry has shown a lot of interests in doing something constructive. We along with Oxfam are working very closely with the ministry and we have realised that not the non-governmental organisations', the roles of the government organisations are of utmost importance.

 DS: What other measures have been taken to aware people about the risks and the things to do after a tremor?

         SR: The ministry has prepared one hundred thousand brochures sponsored by UNICEF, two 90 seconds long short films funded by Oxfam have been made -- one addressing the common people on what they could do and the other aiming at the responsible organistations on what could be done by them. Apart from these, leaflets are being published for distribution in educational institutions. And the effort is on. I am very optimist by the level of seriousness shown by the government. But I agree that it will take time to achieve what we have set out to do.

                                                Kaushik Sankar Das is an Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.