By IANS
Dhaka : Though prospects of a tsunami hitting Bangladesh are remote, most parts of the country and neighbouring India’s northeast region are prone to serious earthquakes, an expert here has said.
Some 38 earthquakes of small to medium magnitude were felt in Bangladesh in the first eight months of the current year, with August itself recording as many as 14 tremors, said Professor Mehdi Ahmed Ansary of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET).
Twelve earthquakes this year were of magnitude 5 and above on the Richter scale.
Ansary, who supervised the seismic zoning map prepared by BUET, told New Age newspaper on Thursday that 43 percent of Bangladesh is in the highest earthquake vulnerable risk zone, 41 percent in moderate and 16 percent in low risk zones.
An official of the Met office said that though two 6.6 magnitude earthquakes struck on June 18 and Aug 18, they did not cause any damage as their epicentres were in the southwestern costal belt of Papua New Guinea and in the northwestern portion of Turkmenistan.
If any major earthquake occurs in the country, the government does not have the capacity to conduct post-earthquake rescue work due to lack of equipment and proper preparedness, said an official of the food and disaster management ministry.
The zoning map prepared by the BUET is yet to be included in the Bangladesh National Building Code, said sources in the housing and public works ministry, adding, however, that the process of inclusion was going on.
Bangladesh is close to the meeting point of the Indian, Eurasian and Burma plates, and the movement of the Indian and Eurasian plates has been ‘locked’ at the foot of the Himalayas for many years, storing strain energy, which may burst any time, said Mohammad Abu Sadeque, director of the Disaster Management Bureau.
When the lock is sprung, it will let out the strain energy, causing major earthquakes that will affect Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal, Sadeque said.