Panic ensues as tower block cracks in Bangladesh capital

DHAKA: Bangladeshi police on Saturday were evacuating one of the tallest buildings in the capital as residents, panicked by two accidents this week including a fire which claimed 117 lives, said the structure was unsafe.

Large cracks appeared in the 22-storey building in the centre of Dhaka, prompting some panic-stricken residents to leave, local police chief Shahidul Haq told AFP.

“We called in building structure experts and they will examine the building, and then we will decide what to do. In the meantime, we are evacuating hundreds of residents from the building,” he said.

The building, a combined residential and office block, is one of the tallest in the city, and its residents are “nervous and scared” after the country’s deadliest blaze on Thursday night killed nearly 120 people in nearby old Dhaka.

“We are using loudspeakers to urge people to move to safety,” Haq said.

On Friday, a seven-storey building tilted dangerously in the city’s Begunbari slum, where another apartment block collapsed earlier this week, killing at least 25 people

Sub-inspector Alamgir Hossain said scores of Begunbari residents were evacuated after cracks were seen in the building, which was close to where a four-storey apartment building toppled onto shanty dwellings late Tuesday.

“The building tilted on Friday, creating panic. We have evacuated the residents and are trying to persuade neighbours to leave their houses too as we are concerned that building may collapse,” Alamgir told AFP.

He said the building’s owner had been arrested as he had flouted construction laws by erecting another floor on top of the permitted six storeys.

“The city development authority has decided to demolish the building,” the police officer added.

On Tuesday night, the four-storey building first tilted and then collapsed within minutes, killing at least 25 people as it crushed three small tin-roofed slum dwellings below.

Police said the building, which was raised on columns on swampy ground, had been significantly modified structurally without approval from housing authorities.

Building collapses are common in the Bangladeshi capital, where construction laws are seldom enforced. In one of the worst such incidents, at least 70 people were killed when a garment factory collapsed outside Dhaka in 2005. AFP

Published in the Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2010.