Are we ready for the big one?

A couple of days before Eid-ul-fitr, we were gently reminded that the solid earth beneath our feet is not that solid after all. A relatively minor earthquake it was, we were told, but in my room on the fourth floor, the gentle swaying back and forth was not a comfortable place to be. My neighbourhood's reaction was also subdued. Looking out at the window, I hardly saw any commotion, except for a few distressed expats wandering aimlessly on the roads to avoid the aftershocks.

As an architect, we are supposed to design buildings that are supposed to withstand magnitudes so that the building may get structurally compromised, but are supposed to withstand the onslaught of grounds shaking violently and resulting collapses, trapping people underneath.

Without getting too technical or accusatory, I wonder what will happen to Dhaka city if and when the big one hits. Incidents much smaller in scale such as the Nimtoli fire disaster has showed the inadequacy of our support services, access, and to the infrastructure, and the blatant disregard for safety precautions.

Let me explain in layman's term what happens in the aftermath of an earthquake.  In a place like Dhaka, one of the top ten cities of the world in terms of population, there will be thousands of people trapped underneath the rubble of collapsed building. Thousands, if not hundred and thousands will have died instantly from the collapsed infrastructure and buildings.

Since our gas supply is pipe-based, the rupture of those pipes in the aftermath will start indiscriminate fires, which will compound the rescue operations of the collapsed buildings. If the main supply switch is also compromised, the fire will burn till it is turned off from the source at the gas fields. However that requires a coordination effort.

In order for the rubble to clear, we shall need hundreds of bulldozers, with fuel and crew. During the earthquake in Turkey, many of the rescue workers and equipment were flown in from Europe, geographically in close proximity to the country.

Do you have enough space to bury the large number of corpses that will result? A morbid thought indeed, but it also is an inevitable fact that the casualties will be very high.

Should the hospitals and health facilities survive a catastrophic earthquake, will they be able to take care of the injuries, many of them fatal, in an emergency?

Does the city or the government have a backup plan should the bureaucracy or the administration tumble in the aftermath?

At the end of the day, we have to remember that we live on a delta. What happens in severe earthquakes is that the soil liquefies and acts accordingly. In simulations, and from witness accounts, buildings are known to topple like a domino effect in the severe cases, and we are constantly being told that 'the big one' is overdue.

To keep the doomsday scenario going, the dead will be better of than the living, who will have to deal with no water, food supplies cut off, scavenging from the debris and dealing with the stench of thousands dead.

Last time the big one hit, the mighty Brhamaputra changed its course. Instead of flowing by Mymensigh, it changed its route via Sirajganj to the geography that we know today.

Whatever preparedness required of the support network, there are capital expenditures involved, I understand that. However, under the civil defense network, we should be trained as to what precautions and procedures to take at least during the earthquake.

The recent debacle in earthquake response in Port-au-Haiti can provide a similar lesson for Dhaka. There the government collapsed since the buildings related to the machinery had also collapsed. It was the international community, led mostly by the US that came to the rescue to clear up the mess. Medical units were set up, orphanages were established, along with the scandal of attempted smuggling of children for adoption, scores of employment opportunities wiped out, and thousands upon thousands left homeless under the open sky. Once the international community deemed that the basic work has been done, the majority have returned to their respective countries, leaving a population that has no work, no home, and no future in the short term. In the meantime the world moved on, and Haiti became another statistic in the media and world psyche of 'compassion fatigue'. Port-au-Prince, like Dhaka, being the driving economic urban hub of the country, the quake, even though centered around the capital city, dealt a major blow to the economic survival of the whole country. The poorest country of the western hemisphere became poorer overnight. The remote quake in the Kashmir region of Pakistan a few years ago also show how population centres are reduced to primitive living condition within the span of a few minutes. On the other hand, Kobe, in Japan suffered a major quake in the mid 1990s. A country that is used to such calamities, it was still a major blow.  However, being the second largest economy in the world helped cushion the impact and rebuild the city, an economic luxury we don't have. Already known as a disaster prone country, what kind of sustained international support Bangladesh will get in the long run should such a quake hit us only remains to be seen. We can't even cope with our traffic. How are we supposed to cope with the ensuing nightmare that will follow a major earthquake?

During the last major quake, Ahsan Manzil's dome collapsed, Kantaji Temple lost the four minarets in the four corners, and given the rural nature of our landscapes, loss of life was not gargantuan. I am not sure we shall be so lucky this time.

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MK Aaref is an architect. He studied architecture and urban planning at the University of Houston.