●          Unplanned urbanization must be controlled high hand.

●          Building codes must be maintained on an urgent basis.

●          Countrywide mass training to be launched to face tremors.

●          Sudden hot, sudden cold bode ominous sign

Abdul Khaleque Khandker: A-4.6 magnitude earthquake shook the capital city, Dhaka last Friday early morning when most of the people were still asleep.

The tremor was felt more than its magnitude on the Richter scale, it was learned.

Many panic-stricken people ran to the open places and streets to find out safety, but can this sprint to the road and streets provide them any safe haven?

Dhaka is on track to become the fourth most populous city in the world by 2030, yet unsafe construction practices continue to put the expected population of 28 million at alarming risk – especially if an earthquake occurs along the two major fault lines just 60 km from the city, a survey report of the geological experts informed.

They say Dhaka city, the soul of Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to the earthquake disaster due to the high density of population, unplanned infrastructure and close proximity to India and Myanmar`s active seismic area, poor economic conditions, and poor. emergency preparation and recovery capability.

Over the recent years, scientists have come to recognize that Bangladesh is positioned at the juncture of several active tectonic plate boundaries.

Moreover, it sits atop the world’s largest river delta at close to sea level, facing both the risk posed by a quake and secondary risks of tsunamis and flooding in the quake’s aftermath, recent findings of the scientists reportedly have said.

The vehement earthquake that hit and turned Turkey and Syria into dead lands recently, has made the experts and researchers alarmed about Bangladesh, which lies in several active tectonic plate boundaries, according to them.

Some people were saying, the Turkeye-Syria earthquake might be a cue for any massive tremors to occur in the day to come.

Allah forbidding, if such furry pernicious disaster occurs,, then what preparedness Bangladesh has had to face it, some experts have raised the question.

 “Have we had that technological and financial ability to face and tide over any such major disaster?” -  is now also a buzzword among a cross-section of people in the country.

A question has surfaced in many minds as to what mitigation approaches Bangladesh has had to face any such disaster.

The occurrence of earthquakes in an earthquake-prone region cannot be prevented. Rather, all that could be done is to minimize the loss of life and property.

The earthquake disaster mitigation approach should be followed by (i) pre-disaster physical planning of human settlements, (ii) building measures for minimizing the impact of the disaster, and (iii) management of settlements.

But have we got adequate measures to face these extreme oddities? There is not any suitable answer to this question.