At least 13 areas of the South Asian country could be affected by earthquakes due to tectonic faults.
Seismologists warn that a magnitude 7-8 tremor is likely to be felt in Dhaka from a distance of 100-200 kilometers, which could damage weak buildings in the Bangladeshi capital.
The ground in the city’s expanded or new residential areas is soft and weak, and as a result multi-storey buildings that do not conform to building codes are prone to collapse under the effects of a medium-sized earthquake.
In the meantime, any shaking poses a relatively small risk to one- to three-story buildings built on red earth.
According to experts, the collapse of buildings is responsible for 90 percent of deaths from an earthquake.
Professor Syed Humayun Akhter, vice chancellor of the Open University of Bangladesh, explained that there are 13 subterranean fault lines with fissures, and although all are far from Dhaka, many buildings can collapse in a moderate to strong earthquake.
Akhter added that unfortunately the construction of most of the buildings in Dhaka does not comply with building codes and terrain features and therefore a smaller earthquake than the one that hit Türkiye recently can cause more damage.
According to the Department of Civil Engineering at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka, there are 2.1 million buildings, 600,000 of which have six floors or more.
For this reason, seismologist Mehedi Ahmed Ansary warned that if the construction of buildings on soft soils, which violate the regulations, is not stopped, a great catastrophe is imminent.
According to Professor ASM Maksud Kamal of Dhaka University’s Department of Science and Disaster Management and Academic Vice-Chancellor, 35 percent of the capital’s land area is soft ground and the remaining 65 percent is muddy and sandy areas.
New cities have been built on this type of surface, and most housing projects are carried out on soft ground, with the risk of collapse and tilting in the event of a magnitude 5-6 earthquake, the researcher noted.
jf/abm