Disaster Resilience and Sustainability through Seismic Retrofitting in Bangladesh

1.0 Background

Bangladesh, an emerging South Asian country is situated in a disaster-prone region and often faces such
disasters like Cyclones, Floods, Storm Surges and Earthquakes. Damage minimization and post disaster
mitigation remains the main focus for several decades regarding this issue that involves a significant share
from the annual budgetary allocation from government end. This has been a major concern for the
sustainability of infrastructure as well as funding for new ones. Necessity of preparation against the issue
has immerged primarily concentrating on public buildings to make them disaster resistant so that it can be
functioning adequately after disaster phenomenon. In general, public buildings are concentrated in urban
areas that involve vulnerability related to earthquake induced damages. In addition, a lot of old and low
resistant buildings are existed those were built before enactment of Bangladesh National Building Code
(BNBC 1993) in 2006. According to the survey results conducted under the project CDMP-2009 i, if an
earthquake of M7.5 at Madhupur Fault in the Dhaka suburb occurs, the damage estimation for the Dhaka
city would be like out of total 326000 buildings, 72000 buildings get damaged beyond repair with an
economic loss of about US $1,112 million only for the structural damage. Countermeasures from
Government of Bangladesh have been taken through formulation of national policy/plan, such as National
Plan for Disaster Management (NPDM) and Standing Order on Disasters (SOD). In harmony with
goal#11 (Sustainable cities and communities) of SDGs ii, there is also global obligations to ensure
sustainability of urban infrastructures. Public Works Department (PWD) under Ministry of Housing and
Public Works (MoHPW) is one of the lead organizations to promote seismic-resistant buildings. PWD has
been engaged in construction of Cyclone and Flood-resistant structures, while experience and capacity
development of seismic-resistant design/construction of existing buildings is immensely coherent with
those national and international policies regarding building safety. The past records show that many large
earthquakes occurred in and around this region. The Great Assam Earthquake of 8 class magnitude in
1897 has caused significant damage to housing and human lives. In recent times Location of the Nepal
earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 occurred in 2015 was not far away and was felt in Dhaka causing
more than 200 injuries including 4 death reports. Besides, several medium scale earthquakes at Sylhet,
causing major cracks/ tilting of buildings, demand strong focus on earthquake preparedness.

Table 1:Significant regional Earthquakes

Year Magnitude Source Area
1869 7.5 Chacar, India
1885 7.0 Sirajgonj, Bangladesh
1897 8.7 Great Indian EQ
1918 7.6 Srimongol, Bangladesh
1930 7.1 Dhubri, India
1950 8.5 Assam, Himalaya
1954 7.4 Monipur, India
2015 7.5 Barpak, Nepal
2015 7.1 Nepal
2016 7.2 India-Myanmar Border

Figure 1: Earthquake risk in Bangladesh and nearby regionsiii

2.0 Strategic action

As per SODiv 2010, PWD have been entrusted following works in addition to its normal duties for risk
reduction:
 Ensure proper execution of BNBCv.
 Inclusion of disaster risk in the policies, programs and guidelines of all the development work of
PWD.
 Preparation of manual for seismic capacity evaluation and earthquake resistant design.

To ensure sustainability, Demolish and Reconstruction (D&R) of existing vulnerable buildings might be
considered as an option while this process would require (i) relocation space, (ii) continuous functionality
of important buildings, like hospitals, fire stations, etc., and (iii) huge budgetary demand vi for the D&R.
Whereas, Retrofitting is an alternative technology to strengthen the vulnerable buildings against seismic
hazard. It is a combination of restoration, repair, and strengthening of an existing structure. Rather going
for reconstruction of huge urban vulnerable building stocks, retrofit can be a suitable alternative with
essential features to eliminate major constraints of D&R.

A technical collaboration project namely CNCRP between Japanese Government and Government of
Bangladesh was initiated in 2011 to enhance safety of the buildings. In particular, concentrating on the
garment industry which is the key for Bangladesh economy, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Labor,
Ministry of Housing and Public Works and garment industry federations have put efforts unanimously.
The Japanese Government stepped forward to facilitate garment industry seismic retrofitting works with
SME loan while the CNCRP project team was entrusted for total technical assistance. After that, several
public and private buildings of different nature have been considered for enhancement of structural
capacity by retrofit technology. Encouraged by the primary success of the CNCRP project a successor
project was formulated in 2015 namely BSPP to protect human life and boost the economic growth by
ensuring building safety as well as reduce disaster risk in dense urban areas. In addition to that, UBSP is
also being run aiming at strengthening the building safety by financing loans for retrofitting, rebuilding
and relocation for private buildings and by improving the building safety for public buildings, thereby
contributing to improvement of the social vulnerability of urban cities.

3.0 Retrofit scenario in Bangladesh

Retrofit refers to Restoration, Strengthening and Repair of existing structure. Series of activities are
involved with this whole process. The basic steps are Seismic vulnerability assessment, Retrofit design
and Retrofit construction.

a) Column strengthening b) RC Wall installation c) Steel Frame Bracing installation

Figure 2: Retrofit Construction work

Official application of retrofit in building sector in our country has been established since the
implementation of CNCRP project. A public building (Tejgaon Fire Station) as pilot project was
implemented with GoB funding solely by PWD and JICA under CNCRP. Few other public buildings of
important nature (hospital, radio station, etc.) and few RMG factory buildings in private sector have also
been retrofitted later on.
Since, retrofit technology has been taken from other country’s experience (Japan for example), there are
some basic differences in design basis and construction practices with those are practiced in Bangladesh.
Therefore, reconciliation of various components is must for proper application of the methodology taken
from others. Different structural tests have been carried out with the participation of different sectors like
PWD, JICA expert team and Universities.

4.0 Conclusion

As per experience gathered by PWD through retrofit, the outcome is quite satisfactory in the purview of
(a) cost efficiency, (b) time saving, and (c) continuity of service & economic activities. It was observed
that the cost of retrofitting remains within 10%-30% compared to reconstruction of a similar new
building. Most importantly, with a proper implementation of retrofit method we can achieve safety with
enhanced building life, lower budgetary demand for implement disaster risk reduction, no additional
space requirement for occupant relocation, and continuous functionality of existing structure. As a whole,
sustainable infrastructure could be achieved with relatively lower cost, which would eventually lead to
further economic growth.
i
5.0 References

A project under the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, Bangladesh, URL:
https://www.preventionweb.net/files/globalplatform/entry_bg_paper~cdmpphaseii.pdf
ii
https://www.bd.undp.org/content/bangladesh/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-11-
sustainable-cities-and-communities.html.
iii
Bangladesh meteorological department.
iv
Standing orders on disasters (SOD) – 2010 by Ministry of Food and Disaster Management, Bangladesh.
v
Housing and Building Research Institute, “Bangladesh National Building Code – BNBC”.
vi
CDMP calculates that about 36 Billion USD would be required for Demolish & Reconstruction of
Seismic vulnerable buildings of Dhaka Metro.