We only come to know about the risk-prone buildings in different cities of the country including Dhaka and Chattogram after an occurrence of accident. There is no way to know in advance. Illegal and out of designed buildings are being constructed one after another in front of the eyes of those who are supposed to look after these. Those include multi-storey buildings as well. This has been possible due to the negligence of the authorities.
After tiling of two buildings and a temple in the Majhirghat Stand Road area of Chattogram city, authorities declared the buildings risky and evacuated them on Monday. The tilted buildings include a three-storey, a two-storey and a one-storey temple. In addition, a tin-shed house has sunk. At least 10 families would live in two buildings and in the tin-shed house.
The building owners said they built the house after getting the design approved by the Chittagong Development Authority. But the buildings tilted while working on the CDA’s waterlogging development project. On the other hand, the director of the waterlogging project said that the buildings were not constructed as per the design code. Some parts of the two buildings were hanging over the canal.
The question is how the unplanned building was built over the canal? Why didn't the CDA demolish the unplanned ones? There are thousands of unauthorised buildings not only in Chattogram but all over the country. In February 2016, 321 buildings in Dhaka were identified as highly risky and it was said that they would be demolished.
Building number-4 of Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka Medical College Hospital building, Salimullah Medical College Hospital building and fire service building are among those. Outside Dhaka, Chattogram has 24 risk-prone buildings, 40 in Khulna and 31 in Sylhet. Sylhet Medical College Hospital and Chittagong Medical College Hospital are among those.
At present the number of buildings RAJUK in Dhaka is more than 1 million. Earlier, another survey had identified 72,000 buildings in Dhaka as risky. According to experts, the number of risky buildings in the capital is much higher. Not only non-designed establishments, many designed and approved buildings are also risky. Many multi-storey buildings also do not have their own fire safety system.
Again, in the name of design approval, the incidents of forgery are not rare. After a fire in a 23-storey building in Banani in 2019 that killed 25 people, it was learned that the building had 19-storey approval. The owners have built up to 23 floors unlawfully. There is always collusion between a quarter of dishonest officials of RAJUK with influential building owners. They try to protect each other rather than obeying building codes. When a building collapses somewhere or people are burned to death in a fire, the authorities show some activity. Afterwards, everything goes on as before. This culture needs to be changed.
Legal action should be taken against the owners who are constructing buildings in Dhaka, Chattogram or anywhere else violating the approved design. It is necessary to increase surveillance so that no one can build such buildings.